GUERNEVILLE, Calif. – About 2,000 people in a rural California community near Sacramento were asked to leave their homes Tuesday as a river swollen by days of heavy rain threatened to flood, while north of San Francisco thousands more were urged to seek higher ground.
Emergency crews and officials worked through Tuesday to try to bolster the levee in Sacramento County along the Cosumnes River, before deciding to ask 2,000 residents of Wilton to voluntarily evacuate before dark.
Sacramento County emergency services official Mary Jo Flynn said water was expected to spill over the levee before midnight, flooding low-lying roads and buildings with up to 1 foot of water.
An evacuation center will be opened Tuesday evening in neighboring Elk Grove but some residents said they plan to stay put.
“We have no concerns,” Lill Nichols, who with her husband runs a horse farm near the river, told the Sacramento Bee. “We have animals and can’t evacuate anyway.”