Weather conditions prompt harsh circumstances for residents

Mar. 1—Legs swollen with nowhere to go and no way to get to his vital medication, 68-year-old Randy Alvord was stuck in Bakersfield Wednesday after freezing temperatures and icy snow shut his route home to Mojave.

Interstate 5 and Highway 58 — major arteries connecting Bakersfield to Southern California and eastern Kern County — closed throughout much of Wednesday after snow pummeled Tehachapi and the Grapevine overnight. I-5 reopened a little after 4 p.m., with escorts led by California Highway Patrol officers, but Caltrans estimated Highway 58 wouldn't open until about noon Thursday.

On Wednesday night, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in Kern, among other counties. The state is offering support to county-led emergency responses to offer relief to residents.

The storms drenching Kern County brought bigger problems for local residents — not just paralyzing access to medication, but also lack of shelter for people living on the street.

For Alvord, it was bad enough that he had driven to Bakersfield to participate in a sleep study to help his sleep apnea. He was left no choice but to walk the streets of Bakersfield, with his cane, with no destination.

"They just hurt really bad," he said of his feet.

In his misery he had company: Little help is available to homeless people living on riverbanks susceptible to flooding when water levels rise in the Kern River.

Most beds were filled in local shelters except for a few at the Open Door Network — formerly known as the Bakersfield Homeless Center — and at the Mission at Kern County, Flood Ministries Executive Director Jim Wheeler said at about 3 p.m. Wednesday. Available shelter space often fluctuates, he added, but generally by noon nearly every day most local shelters are completely full.

Wheeler added his outreach teams offer individuals without homes available beds and tips for staying safe during inclement weather, especially as the National Weather Service forecast sub-freezing temperatures would grip Kern from 2 to 9 a.m. Thursday.

Carlos Baldovinos, executive director at the Mission at Kern County, said there's available space at the year-round facility for people to escape the elements. He's seen more people use that service when mercury plummets and rises during summer.

Wheeler and Baldovinos both said they are always looking for more ways to house people. A representative from The Open Door Network did not respond to a request for comment about ways the facility helps people without a place to stay during winter storms.

The city of Bakersfield contracts with Flood Ministries and contributed to the expansion of beds at The Open Door Network, city of Bakersfield spokesman Joe Conroy wrote in an email. He added city staff eagerly await opening more beds at the Brundage Lane Navigation Center after a recent expansion.

Weather is like another pathology infecting homeless people, said Clinica Sierra Vista Dr. Matthew Beare, who treats homeless people with teams going where encampments spring up.

"It's so tragic," Beare said.

Cold and wet weather alone can cause hypothermia, which is "significantly dangerous," Beare said. Those factors worsen cardiovascular and pulmonary illnesses. City code enforcement officers often remove encampments amid icy rain, causing further distress and rougher conditions, he added.

"They have all of this to worry about on a day-to-day, 24/7 basis," Beare said. "It's survivalism nonstop."

Several areas of Bakersfield — ranging from Oildale to southwest Bakersfield — experienced sheets of hail or graupel, or snow pellets differing from hail, said Jim Bagnall, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Hanford. Graupel starts off as snow and then freezes with water as it descends from the sky.

Bagnall didn't know how much snow draped on Kern's mountainous regions, but he estimated about one to two inches of rain fell in Bakersfield on Friday and Saturday. There was little rain recorded Sunday and about 0.01 inches of precipitation on Monday. On Wednesday, there was about 0.08 inches of rain, Bagnall added.

He said the city will have several days of reprieve from wet weather, which he predicted will return by early next week.

Conroy, the city spokesman, added that roads were flooded because rain overwhelmed drainage systems' ability to divert 1.59 inches over a 24-hour period to meet 10-year storm requirements.

"According to the city's Water Resources Department, the average annual precipitation Bakersfield receives is 6.52 inches," Conroy wrote. "That means we saw almost one-third of our annual average rainfall for the entire year in just two days."

CHP Fort Tejon Officer D.C. Williams said he saw multiple people ignoring traffic cones posted on dangerous roads and got stranded over the Grapevine after freshly fallen powder blocked alternative routes. People thought they could drive through rough conditions because they owned a four-wheeler, Williams added, but that's often not the case. Those roads aren't well traveled and often haven't been plowed, he noted.

Roads may look clear, and so motorists tend to disregard cones designating unsafe conditions, Williams said. He recalled a man who wanted to take his wife to Southern California for shoulder surgery but instead was trapped by snow. That surgery can wait, William said: It's worth experiencing slight inconveniences rather than being stranded in freezing temperatures and waiting hours for help.

Alvord, the stranded Mojave resident, added he ate breakfast at a McDonald's while waiting for his Motel 6 room to open. But he was soon told to leave by a worker and had to walk around for hours.

"I've lived up on the desert (for) over 50 years," Alvord said. And, he added, this experience has never happened to him.

You can reach Ishani Desai at 661-395-7417. You can also follow her at @_ishanidesai on Twitter.