The rain has been coming down off and on, but when winter comes, experts say the storms could be devastating.
According to NBC Bay Area meteorologists, the conditions this year seem to be shaping up very closely to some of our most disastrous rainy seasons before.
Drones are one of the tools local agencies will employ to help the South Bay through this winter, which could be as harsh as any the area has had before.
Drones will help evaluate conditions as they build.
“What’s going on? Is it raining? We have a specific drone for that. Is it super high winds? We have a drone for that. Is it at night? We can have lights that we attached to it so you know it probably depends on the situation of which drones we bring out, which is why we have 11 in our fleet,” said Zach Ansley, a Senior Surveyor.
According to local leaders at a news briefing led by the Santa Clara Valley Water District, they will need it.
“Our crews are out there cleaning debris, removing vegetation, clearing out the unhoused encampments, making sure the water can flow freely before the rain comes,” said Richard Santos, Water District Board vice chair.
That rain could be as hard as the storms that hit San Jose in 2016-17 and 2022-23 that required evacuations and rescues.
Brian Garcia, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service, points out those years started with a La Niña system and went into a neutral phase, just like what seems to be happening this year.
“I’m not saying that the past dictates our future, but we learn lessons from the past,” Garcia said.
San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan says they did learn from those years.
“Valley Water and our city teams came together to create the ‘joint emergency action plan,’ a clear blueprint for how we communicate, coordinate and make decisions when water levels start to rise,” Mahan said.
Santa Clara County’s Office Of Emergency Management reminds the public it has an alert system set up for every town and city – AlertSCC.
“If registered with ‘AlertSCC’, community members will receive life-saving information through text messages, emails phone calls, and other accessible formats,” said Tim Chin with Santa Clara County.
The experts all emphasized that it takes a lot of collaboration with agencies and the public to avert disaster when the severe storms start coming the county’s way.
Source: NBC Bay Area