‘We need to stop the water’: CA town’s fight to save itself

Last week, when it rained for days and floodwaters poured onto roads, the people of Allensworth grabbed shovels and revved up tractors.

The makeshift barriers they built with sandbags, gravel and loose sand kept the water back.

Now, the town of nearly 600 people northwest of Bakersfield faces another threat — a broken levee, along with yet another storm expected to hit in a few days.

On Saturday morning, the residents were back at work, shoveling sand onto a 3-foot high berm.

Allensworth, the state’s first town to be founded by Black Americans, is now a predominantly Latino community. Some residents work on nearby farms, planting and harvesting almonds, pistachios, grapes and pomegranates.

Local leaders say they need help from county, state and local officials to protect their town.

“It is becoming a major crisis for our community,” said Kayode Kadara, 69, who has been working with neighbors to defend against the floodwaters. “We have a lot of concerned people in this community. And we all rally to help each other.”

The low-lying unincorporated community lies in the Tulare Lake watershed, which was drained for agriculture in the early 1900s. The latest storms have sent floodwater coursing through canals and ditches and flowing across farmland toward the old lake bottom.

On Saturday, a helicopter flew over the broken levee and was dropping loads of sand to plug it, while a crew was using machinery to help close the leak, said Jack Mitchell, head of the Deer Creek Flood Control District.

He said the levee was almost fully repaired but that flooding was still a huge concern.

Mitchell said he believes the levee breach was caused by someone intentionally cutting through the earthen barrier with machinery.

“They did it with a backhoe with a big skip-loader. We tracked it down,” Mitchell said. “We know who’s done it.”

Mitchell said he hopes the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers or other authorities will come in to “take charge” and help the area “start getting rid of this floodwater.”

“We need some help from higher up because out of another creek, the water is just getting there, and it’s going to hit us hard,” he said.

Some landowners have been trying to keep floodwaters off their acreage, Mitchell said, including one that used a large piece of equipment to block a channel.

“They just don’t want to give up any ground, but they’d rather flood everywhere except where it’s supposed to go,” Mitchell said.

More than a dozen residents stood talking beside a runoff-swollen ditch. Beside them was a gravel berm they had scrambled to build two days before near the entrance to Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park.

In the distance, a red emergency helicopter flew back and forth, apparently dropping loads of sand to repair the broken levee.

The churning brown water had sunk a few feet below the berm, but residents said they are worried they might have to evacuate when the next surge of floodwater comes. They said a couple of families have already packed up and left low-lying homes.

Kadara’s son, Tekoah, said more than 100 residents met at the elementary school Friday night to discuss plans for preventing disaster.

“We’re just talking about how we can save our community, because nobody is coming to help us,” said Kadara, 41, executive director of the Allensworth Community Development Corp.

“We need temporary armoring right now,” Kadara said. “We need to stop the water from coming into the town.”

Read more from Ian James of the LA Times:  https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-03-18/california-towns-frantic-fight-floods.