Crews rush to mop up flooded Le Grand streets before next storm

MERCED COUNTY (KFSN) -- A day after flooding took over the streets of Le Grand neighborhoods, signs of relief are seen.

Much of the water that flooded the town of less than 2,000 is receding, but more than 25 homes were affected.

Kim Bishop lives on Burchell Avenue and said he lucked out because his house sits on higher ground.

"We were real lucky," he said. "We watched it go around us, and we were kind of trapped."

But his neighbors down the road had a different experience.

"A lot of them had to leave," Bishop said. "We want to be prepared but none of us were prepared for this. Everybody was grabbing stuff and trying to move it real fast."

Merced County officials say they not seen anything like this in over 60 years.

"We had a large body of water in the Mariposa Reservoir that resulted in a significant amount of water going over the spillway as designed but that's what caused the flooding," Mike North with the county said.

With more rain expected next week, county crews are now tasked with getting as much of the city cleaned up before the next round of storms hit.

"It's a very short window from now until Wednesday to recover and clean up from this last weather system," North said. "So, we need to use this short break to do as much as possible."

While that is happening, Bishop says he is going to stay on alert.

"My wife got tubs, and she grabbed all of our things and she grabbed all of our pictures and jewelry and threw it in tubs," he said.