Carmel residents rescued from waist-high water in flooded homes
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The Carmel River floods on Jan. 28, 2021 in Carmel, Calif.KSBW
In the coastal town of Carmel, California, six homes were inundated with water on Thursday when the Carmel River swelled amid heavy downpours from an atmospheric river, officials said.
A natural sand levee holding back the surging river near Carmel River State Beach breached, but not before the river pushed back into the Carmel River Lagoon and poured into a small neighborhood.
"There's a berm between the ocean and the lagoon that normally breaches in significant weather in the winter months, so if it doesn't breach it can backup, fill the lagoon and cause some flooding in area homes," explained Brian Garcia, a forecaster with the National Weather Service office in Monterey. "From what I understand, Monterey County Water Resources Agency went and dug out the berm a little bit. As they dug out the berm to a point where the water lowered, it ultimately, finally breached the lagoon itself and things started to drain really fast."