It was late in the evening on Jan. 9, and the waters were rising. Diega and Fernando, holed up in their house, were listening to the rain pound down on their leaky roof when their granddaughter arrived at the front door and ordered them to immediately collect what they could and follow her to safety.
The couple grabbed blankets, pillows and a handful of important documents they kept in a plastic bag and waded through the surging water to their car. The route north was impassable so they followed their granddaughter’s car south, slowly navigating the dark and swelling streets of Planada, a farmworker community in Merced County where a breached levee would trigger a mandatory evacuation order the following morning.
