Prepare For Rain: SLO County and Team Rubicon Begin El Niño Storm Prep Workshops
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (KEYT) – The City Of San Luis Obispo is hosting free storm-preparation events starting tonight.
They're designed to help protect residents and businesses during El Niño.
The state issued an emergency declaration in response to severe weather forecasts.
We're looking at getting a couple or should be an inch of rain over the of the next couple of days,” says Joe Little, Emergency Manager at the San Luis Obispo Fire Department. “I don't anticipate it being a big deal, but you may have a situation at your individual home that, you know, a one inch of rain and a two day period may create some problems.”
Experts warn that a super El Niño pattern could bring heavier rain and larger storms, placing increased pressure on local creeks and storm drainage systems.
“Our creek system here in San Luis Obispo really is designed to move water very fast out of town,” says Little. “But what happens is, we can only put so much water through the creek system at once and it starts to back up.”
City crews are focusing on high-risk areas.
“I want to say like 3 or 4 years ago, maybe five, the big storm hit and all the floods were going on,” says Dylan Pimentel, who works for Burt Industrial Supply.
Little is urging residents to prepare now.
“When it's nice out like this is a great day to be sand bagging, especially if you know your home is going to be impacted by by any kind of flood water,” says Little.
The first preparation event is a community sandbag workshop here at the City Corporation Yard. Participants should wear durable work boots and tough pants and bring empty sandbags to fill during the training.
“And if folks want to buy sandbags here locally, our hardware stores here carry them,” says Little. “Whether it's Home Depot, Hayward, Miners, a couple of other places in town have them.”
The training workshop is from 5:30 to 7:30 Tuesday night.
A community wide sandbag filling day is set for Saturday, November 7th.
“We stock a lot of storm preparation stuff here, such as sandbags, waddles, whatever anybody needs,” says Pimentel. “You never know. Mother Nature has its way of working and hitting us when we least expect it.”
City officials are also publishing storm preparation information and providing updates through the Storm Central web portal at https://www.slocity.org/government/department-directory/fire-department/prepare-slo/storm-central.
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