'We lost everything': One Tulare County family's reality following the storms
STRATHMORE — The sky was mostly clear Thursday as the rain clouds had long moved on following a series of ferocious storms that hammered the small town earlier in the week, leaving only a few dark shadows behind.
Rows upon rows of orange trees line 14th Avenue, one of the many roads you can take from Visalia to Strathmore.
Despite the calm weather, hundreds of pools of standing water sat at the bottom of the citrus trees, a visual reminder of what happened this week — and what was to come.
The scenery has become the new norm over the last few weeks as portions of Central California have grappled with severe weather bringing an onslaught of rainfall. In turn, floods have taken over what is usually a peaceful, small agricultural town.
‘We lost everything’
Strathmore has one post office. It’s located in a compact building with only four or five parking spots, the back of which was still flooded on Thursday.
There, I met Ubaldo “Lalo” Sanchez, a Porterville resident who owns a large plot of land in Strathmore.
Lalo reached out via email just after 5 p.m. Wednesday, sharing a few photographs of the flooding he was experiencing around the neighborhood he called home.
“They're just simple pictures that I just took to try to get somebody's attention and say, ‘Hey, somebody please help me figure out what I need to do,’” he explained. “Nobody's worried ... I'm only one person.”
The first photograph looked like a lake, but in reality, was a portion of Lalo’s property.
The next photograph was of dark red and orange container pods stationed next to a white truck, which was underwater up to the driver's side window.
The last photograph Lalo shared was of a classic red barn, with a vintage cherry red Diamond T truck, and a large tractor parked out front, all surrounded by the same muddy water.
He offered to show me the flooding around Strathmore, as well as the flooding at his property.
“We are OK… but we lost everything we have worked hard for,” he said. “Our entire family's livelihood is underwater.”
The calm before the storm
Lalo sat in the driver's seat of his pickup truck, with his father, Victor, next to him in the passenger seat. The bed of the truck housed a red canoe, some waders he had picked up just this week, and a set of extra boots.
As we made our way toward the property, Lalo explained some of the area’s flooding history, including the March 2019 floods that damaged at least 21 homes, two buildings and nine vehicles in Strathmore. Lalo's property was spared that year.
“In the 40 years that we've owned it, we've never had this issue,” Lalo said as we drove by some of the homes that were condemned and damaged four years ago. “I mean, the water has risen… but we’ve never had this problem.”
Frazier Creek flows downstream toward Highway 65 and Avenue 196 and pools at the toe of the Friant-Kern Canal, where it is pumped by two Tulare County pumps that were installed when residential development began.
Prior to the installation of the pump, the creek would drain past the Friant-Kern Canal through valves. The valves were eventually plugged by the county once development in the area began.
Multiple pumps, some punctured with minuscule holes allowing the floodwater to escape back out onto the street, were redirecting water toward a nearby storm drain Thursday. The main road that leads to the property is blocked off by “ROAD CLOSED,” “DETOUR,” and "FLOODED" signage and cones.
Lalo takes us around the back to avoid the closure, navigating through a small neighborhood before parking in front of a barn — the same one from the photos. The water level doesn’t seem to have changed much.
We walk up and down the elevated road that neighbors the Sanchez property; it’s the first time Victor is seeing the real extent of the damage. The father-son duo stood quietly for a few moments, surrounded by water, tears visibly spilling over in the duos' eyes.
“This is our safe place,” Lalo said, staring at the damage as he wept.
The storm ‘caught us off guard’
Lalo knew something was wrong when he got multiple back-to-back alerts from his Ring camera Monday morning, but it wasn’t until he opened the alerts that he realized that the area was flooding, and quickly.
Overall, the majority of Strathmore saw around 2-3 inches of rain on Monday and Tuesday. Lalo said his family never received an evacuation warning from the county.
Even though the storm ended late Tuesday, the property continued to receive runoff from the nearby creek.
Luckily, the property doesn’t house farm animals; however, it is home to Bacon, the family dog, and three birds — Charlie, Garbanzo and Petey Bird.
Once he made his way into the building, ensuring all of the animals were safe, Lalo tried to move some of the tractors whose engines hadn’t already been overtaken by floodwaters. Only one made it to the front of the home before the water was waist-high and Lalo was forced to leave for his own safety.
“It happened pretty much overnight. I was there the previous day… the storm came in that night,” he said. “It caught us off guard.”
After suiting up in waders Thursday afternoon, Lalo walked me through their family's "safe place". The entire inside of the building was flooded, the water reached our thighs. It's deceptively hard to navigate through.
Two office rooms, a kitchen and a storage area were completely destroyed by floodwater. Although Lalo has been visiting the property each day and night, his hand is covering his mouth in awe as we push through the murky waters.
Three cars housed in the building were halfway underwater. Outside of the home sits a handful more cars, tractors and farm equipment, and container pods for storage. There are areas we can't navigate due to the high water levels, some areas reaching as high as 6 feet.
The floods are putting a standstill on Lalo’s farming supply business, which will in turn impact around 800 clients and employees.
It’ll be a while before he will know if any of his vehicles still work. With the upcoming storm expected to hit this weekend, and even more severe weather forecasted for next week, all the Sanchez family can do is wait.
A few family members are making the trip from Arizona this week to help salvage whatever they can from the property, but only after water levels drop low enough. Some areas outside of the home will take weeks to clear out.
“We're just thankful that we're OK, you know, that life isn't lost,” Lalo said. “At this point, we are just looking at the clock.”
This article originally appeared on Visalia Times-Delta: 'We lost everything': One Tulare County family's reality following the storms
