Tulare County residents forced to evacuate as river overflows into backyards

TULARE COUNTY, Calif. (KFSN) -- Several evacuation orders and warnings remain in place for parts of Tulare County on Wednesday.

Behind six of the homes on the western side of Rio Vista Avenue in Porterville, high water and heavy river flow caused erosion that was seeping into backyards.

Crews are using more than 10,000 tons of dirt, concrete, and rocks to reinforce what's eroded.

Rebecca Trujillo watched as her neighbors scrambled to evacuate their homes last week.

"From the corner of her house, all the way down the street, was just completely eroding and just taking away here whole backyard," Trujillo recalled. "If they hadn't gotten to it in time, I think that she would have probably lost her house."

City of Porterville crews got to work reinforcing. In the meantime, residents had to go.

'There were moving trucks all over. Neighbor had his Penske truck. A couple of other neighbors had their pickups. The neighbors their friends all of their friends pickups and they were just loading everything," said Trujillo.

A man and his wife rushed to pack up as much from their house as they could into his truck and a storage unit.

It's been almost a week. He came to check on his home, but is staying with family until it's safe to come back.

People evacuated from areas across Tulare County have been offered a place to stay at the Red Cross Emergency Shelter at Porterville College.

There are 80 people staying there now. Red Cross workers say it will stay open as long as there's a need.

This has been a dry place to stay for Mario and his family as they wait for flooding to subside.

"We got evacuated from Alpaugh and we had to come here because we didn't have nowhere else to go," said Mario Morelos, an evacuee.

Wednesday the work continued further along the Tule River.

Homes on the other side of Rio Vista Avenue were spared from having to evacuate.

The work is far from over for crews reinforcing eroded areas along the Tule River.

"Mitigation efforts are going to take months. there is erosion all the way up and down the channel," said Porterville Public Works Director Michael Knight. "The flows that we experience with this storm are unprecedented."

It's still unclear when the people who live in these homes will be able to return safely.

Public Works is aiming for the end of this week.

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