Severe flooding hit California’s Salinas Valley on Thursday, as the Salinas River burst its banks, flooding farmland and threatening to cut off access to the Monterey Peninsula.
Several levees have broken along the banks of the Salinas River, located just south of the Bay Area, with footage of the destruction going viral on Friday morning. So much water is pouring out of the basin that the entirety of the Monterey Peninsula risks being cut off entirely from road access, NBC News reported.
Monterey County residents were advised to prepare for major roadways to be closed due to flooding between Thursday night and Sunday morning as flood-stage water flows move through the Salinas River to the coast. https://t.co/oqZDgmfAAU pic.twitter.com/LGE21x7hmL
— NBC Bay Area (@nbcbayarea) January 13, 2023
The river breached a 23-foot flood stage near the town of Spreckels on Thursday evening, and reached 24 feet Friday morning, Newsweek reported. The Monterey County Sheriff’s Office issued an evacuation order for residents in the area on Monday, and Highway 1 has been closed until further notice.
California is undergoing its third straight week of extreme weather events, including atmospheric rivers and bomb cyclones that have claimed at least 18 lives so far. (RELATED: Nonstop Weather Alerts Issued As The Third Week Of Extreme Storms Hits California)
Aerial footage from the region shows drowned farmlands, but it is currently unclear how damage and flooding from the storms will impact food production and prices nationally. The flooding is expected to last until at least Sunday, NBC Bay Area noted, as more storms are forecasted for the coming weeks.