Already Soggy Areas Brace for Another Round of Rain
John Palminteri
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (KEYT) – Heavy equipment has been plowing sand into a wall of protection at the Santa Barbara waterfront since Wednesday afternoon.
The City of Santa Barbara is activated in many areas with crews focused on prevention and protection in areas prone to flooding. This includes the waterfront, downtown, Funk Zone and airport.
Last weekend, with intense rains over a long duration, many streets were overwhelmed including the heart of downtown. State Street looked like a creek. Mission Creek, however, was able to handle the flow without spilling its banks.
There were clogged drains that contributed to urban street flooding. Those have been cleared especially in problem locations like the lower Santa Barbara City College parking lot and lower Anacapa St. near the railroad tracks that, at times, can fill up with rain run off.
Saturday night several cars were swamped when drivers went into flooded areas and stalled out.
Passengers at the Santa Barbara Airport were arriving with only light coats and in some cases no hats.
One dog walker Serkan Durna with a Husky said, “I think he’s still enjoying, maybe even more, today because it’s a little colder. Yeah, I think Huskies, like the cold more, so it seems pretty happy today. “
In blustery conditions we did find two people fishing with little fish that may be a bigger catch by the end of the day.
Jorie Jorgensen said, “And it’s these little teeny hooks. It’s all in a row. And we’ll catch a couple of them at a time. And, after we catch them, we put them in a bucket right here. And we had about 14 today. “
From there, “we put them on a bigger line and we cast them back out there, and we use them as live bait to try to catch something bigger.”
On the hook in the past she says, “we’ve caught bat rays before, and we’ve also caught thorn back rays. Hopefully one of these days it’ll be halibut.”
Asher Littlejohn was using two fishing poles at once. “The rain generally makes it better for fishing. And it’s true not a lot of other people come out here. Since I’m the only one out here, I do have the best chance!”
Forecasters say the rain will be light to steady all day and into the overnight hours before clearing Friday morning.
(More details, photos, and video will be added here later today.)
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