Merced County prepared for potential floods

PLANADA, Calif. (KFSN) -- Spring break turned into storm preps for Ildefonso Nava, the principal at Planada Elementary School.

"It's part of the job and this is my second home, so gotta do what you gotta do."

Principal Nava was out in the rain to support the crews putting sandbags along his school's gate before students come back to school Monday

The campus was badly flooded during the last storm two weeks ago, damaging four classrooms, a daycare center, and library

"It's mother nature, so you roll with it, but fortunately we have the manpower and the resources in place right now to try to help with the containment of the water, in case it does come this way," said Principal Nava.

So while the school is still cleaning up from the last storm, now they are trying to prevent having more to clean.

Merced County Fire Captain Robert Carvalho says inmate crews are filling close to one thousand sandbags.

"That's important to keep the schools open for them and communicating with the school district and with us to make sure everything is running good."

Mike North, a spokesperson for Merced County, says they're not expecting as much water this time, and might see some localized flooding so they have crews clearing drains and sandbagging areas, but they aren't expecting the Merced River to reach capacity.

"Since the last storm we had all of our reservoirs have had a chance to basically drain out, so we do have a lot of capacity available for this upcoming storm and the rainfall were going to get."

But while the County is not expecting the Merced River to reach capacity, officials still want people to stay away from the banks of the river, beacuse the water will be moving very quickly.