Community
EDSOURCE: California Schools Face ‘Deep Trouble’ as Flooding Danger Looms
As heavy storms keep pounding California with torrential rains and a record Sierra snowpack is poised to melt and send rivers surging over their banks, more than a fifth of the state’s 10,000 K-12 schools are at a high or moderate risk of flooding, an analysis of federal data by EdSource shows.

By Thomas Peele, Emma Gallegos and Daniel J. Willis
EdSource
As heavy storms keep pounding California with torrential rains and a record Sierra snowpack is poised to melt and send rivers surging over their banks, more than a fifth of the state’s 10,000 K-12 schools are at a high or moderate risk of flooding, an analysis of federal data by EdSource shows.
Schools in flood-prone areas, in some cases protected by aging, weakened levees with poor safety ratings, face possible floods similar to those that have already swept through schools in Alameda, Merced and Monterey counties this year, causing millions of dollars in damages, Federal Emergency Management Agency data shows.
Flooding in the Tulare and the San Joaquin basins in the Central Valley in the months ahead “is inevitable,” Jeffrey Mount, a geomorphologist and senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California who studies flood and water management, told EdSource in an interview.
“We’re looking at a pretty epic spring in those places. We’re really going to see some considerable hardship in these small rural communities once this snow begins to melt,” he said. He urged local communities and public agencies like school districts to start planning now.
The snowpack in the southern Sierra measured Monday at more than 300% of what it normally is on April 1 of a given year, according to the state Department of Water Resources. The statewide average came in at 237% of normal.
So much snow has piled atop Alpine County Unified School District’s Bear Valley Elementary School, which sits at 7,000 feet elevation, that it’s been closed over fears the roof may cave in. Its seven students are attending classes at a local library.
“The fact is there is quite a lot of water in the water cannon that is pointed west in the Sierra. And these storms just keep loading it up,” Mount said.
Tulare County in the southern Central Valley, where flooding caused by breached levees soaked the unincorporated towns of Allensworth and Alpaugh last month, has the most schools in the state classified at high flood risk — 35 — according to FEMA data that was last updated in 2009.
Mount specifically singled out the cities of Visalia in Tulare County and Firebaugh and Mendota in western Fresno County as places that should expect to be hit hard.
“Mendota, Firebaugh, places like that are on the San Joaquin River and have schools within them, they’re in deep trouble,” Mount said.
Data show all six schools in the Firebaugh-Las Deltas Unified School District are at high risk of flooding. Levees in the area have a safety rating of unsatisfactory, State Department of Water Resources records show. Those levees, built to prevent the overflow of rivers, are “in pretty bad shape. They’ve been severely neglected over the last 100 years, certainly in the last 50 years,” Mount said.
The school district is preparing staff, students and their families for the serious possibility of a flood. Superintendent Roy Mendiola has encouraged families and staff to prepare a “go bag” with their most important documents. In the event of an evacuation, students will be shuttled to a produce warehouse on high ground on the other side of town. The school district has the largest fleet of buses and vans in the region, so it also plans to help evacuate local residents.
Local agencies, including the city of Firebaugh and its police department, have been key partners in preparing for a potential disaster. Mendiola is getting more guidance from officials at Planada Elementary School District across the valley, which was recently damaged by flooding. But the state hasn’t stepped up with any sort of guidance about how to prepare, said Mendiola. Rather, he’s gotten emails about how to deal with damage in the aftermath of storms. “It wasn’t so much, ‘Here’s what you could do to prepare a plan for an emergency like that,'” said Mendiola.
In Tulare County on the eastern side of the valley, Visalia Unified School District, 38 of 42 schools are at high or moderate flooding danger, data show. Ten are at high risk. A district spokesperson, Cristina Gutierrez, declined to make officials available for an interview. In an email, she wrote that the district is in “constant touch” with Visalia city officials and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which monitors river levels.
Tulare County Superintendent of Schools Tim Hire said school officials in the county are “carefully watching and making decisions day by day” about how to proceed. “They all want students in the classroom, but only if it is safe.”
There is no question that floods will come, said Carlos Molina, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Hanford.
Melting snow will create double the amount of water leaving the mountains than reservoirs from Yosemite in the north to Lake Isabella in the south can hold at one time, he said.
Which rivers will flood? “Take your pick,” Molina said, rattling off names: The Kern. The King. The San Joaquin.
“They will be having problems from now until later this summer.”
The Pajaro flood
When a 75-year-old levee holding back the Pajaro River from the unincorporated northern Monterey County community of Pajaro ruptured March 11, floodwater poured into the center of the farming town. Homes, businesses, and Pajaro Middle School stood in its path. Water entered the school’s classrooms and submerged its grounds.
When State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond visited the school on March 24 some classrooms remained wet. Mud caked walkways inside and out.
Members of Thurmond’s staff wore knee boots as they toured the building. Pajaro Unified School District Superintendent Michelle Rodriguez said cleanup hadn’t started because insurance adjusters hadn’t completed their work. At that point, it was nearly two weeks since the flood and there were concerns mold would worsen the damage. Thurmond, standing before television cameras, called an executive of the school’s insurance company and left a voicemail urging the claim be expedited.
While praising relief workers and expressing concern for displaced families, at one point making a recorded statement to them in Spanish, Thurmond, a former member of the state Assembly, appeared to lack basic knowledge about the situation.
Asked at a news conference how many other schools in the state were prone to similar flooding as Pajaro Middle, he didn’t provide a number. Thurmond responded by describing the many threats schools face. “Before we were talking about floods, we were talking about wildfires, power-safety shut-offs and, of course, we’re still overcoming the impacts of a pandemic. Sadly, it’s become the new normal for there to be school disruption.”
In an email, Scott Roark, spokesperson, said the state Department of Education is in regular communication with other state agencies and the National Weather Service about school flooding risks.
The department recently alerted 500 districts on preparing for and dealing with flood hazards based on models developed by the state’s Department of Water Resources. The information was distributed through local county offices of education, said Abel Guillen, deputy superintendent of public instruction. Many schools on that list are in the Tulare Basin, which includes both Tulare and Kings counties. Schools on those lists are encouraged to update their emergency plans, check to see that they have flood insurance, inventory and photograph costly equipment, move computers from low-lying areas, begin sandbagging and strengthen contact with local emergency operations.
Overall, the FEMA data shows flood ratings for 10,628 California schools, some of them in shared buildings. Of those, 2,230 are identified with high or moderate flood risk. Of those, 398 are high risk of flooding. Another 383 are listed as having a possible flood risk, but there is not enough information to make a more exact estimate.
The risk to another 56 schools is listed as unknown because they are not covered in FEMA flood maps. All are in Alpine, Sutter and Yuma Counties. There are 7,958 schools identified as low-risk. In only three of the state’s 58 counties are all schools listed as low risk— Amador, Calaveras and San Francisco.
Data shows that some of the schools rated as high risk were built in floodways, or floodplains, or in locations where floodwaters are likely to pool. Others were built where floodwater is expected to flow across school grounds.
Of schools rated at moderate or high risk, data show 602 are marked as being at reduced risk because levees protect them. Most are in urban areas — nearly half are in Los Angeles and Orange counties.
In Pajaro, the middle school is listed by FEMA as being at high risk for flooding and being in a sheeting area where water would flow over the school property. That’s what happened when the nearby levee, which was built in 1949, breached March 11.
The flood was the fourth time the town flooded since then and local officials are bitterly complaining about a lack of maintenance on the levee. The river divides Monterey and Santa Cruz counties. The Mercury News reported March 26 that Santa Cruz County spent five times more money than Monterey County did on maintaining the levee on its side of the river over the past three years. The levee breached when the river was below flood stage.
When the record snowmelt hits rivers in the months ahead the state’s levees will be severely tested, said Farshid Vahedifard, a Mississippi State University engineering professor who has extensively studied California’s system of more than 21,000 kilometers of urban and nonurban levees. Many, he said, are aging earthen berms not meant to serve as critical infrastructure.
“I won’t be surprised if I see more failures,” he told EdSource.
Mount put it succinctly: “There are only two kinds of levees,” he said. “Those that have failed and those that will fail.”
They will be severely tested around Memorial Day, Mount said, as snowmelt overwhelms the water systems just when schools are letting out at the end of the academic year and preparing for summer sessions. The ability to use schools as emergency shelters and rally points could be impeded.
In the Southern Sierra, Mount predicted, the looming disaster is “going to last months and, it may take years to recover from.”
The filthiest water imaginable
When heavy rains on Jan. 9 caused a stream to flood and a levee to break in Planada, an unincorporated Merced County community, water naturally ran to the lowest points in town — including the grounds of Planada Elementary School built in 1955 below flood level. FEMA lists the school as a high flood risk and a “special flood hazard area” where water will pond with nowhere to go.
“The filthiest water imaginable” flooded the school, said Jose Gonzalez, superintendent of the Planada Elementary School District. “There were porta-potties floating throughout the community. There were dead rodents.”
Twenty-six first- through fifth-grade classrooms were lost. So were 4,000 books. Rebuild costs, including raising the site above the floodplain, is roughly $12 million. There’s no date for work to start.
School was closed for eight days until students could attend classes in another school in town that didn’t flood.
The floodwaters came fast, Gonzalez said. But it happened when school was closed. Had the same conditions occurred on a school day, “It would have been complete chaos,” he said.
The disaster wasn’t new for Gonzalez. The school also flooded during a 2018 storm.
“They said (2018) was a 100-year flood,” Gonzalez said. Federal and state officials told him,'”Don’t worry, it’s not going to happen again,”‘ he said. “Five years later here we are.”
In 2018 the district didn’t have flood insurance. But it was able to join a joint-powers authority of other small districts to buy insurance that covered the January damage. Litigation over the levee breach is likely, he said.
The district has a soccer field and track nearby. Gonzalez said it may be lowered “with the field at the bottom with the track around the top” to serve as a “ponding basin” where floodwater could be diverted. He’s had to learn about water rights, hydraulics and meteorology — things “they don’t teach you in superintendents’ school.”
“Any time there’s a light rain I drive out to check the creek,” he said. “It’s just part of the routine.”
For decades schools in California could be built anywhere where a local district could find and afford land. If that means in the floodplain of the Pajaro River or the lowlands of Planada, then that’s where they were built.
“Finding land for new schools isn’t easy. It’s only getting harder as the cost of land increases,” said Jeffrey Vincent, of UC Berkeley’s Center for Cities & Schools. “It’s not like they get the pick of the litter.”
School boards can override other local agencies on land use decisions, putting schools wherever they can acquire land.
But one district in 2018 decided not to build in a floodplain.
The Kern High School District declined to build a new school in a floodplain to serve the unincorporated town of Lamont, said Jack “Woody” Colvard, a facilities management consultant for the Kern County superintendent of schools. He previously worked for the Kern High School District, which considered several options that would allow the school to be built in Lamont, but none of them were practical.
One idea was to buy 180 acres for a 120-acre campus — the other 60 acres would provide dirt that would allow the campus to be raised above the floodplain. Just the grading alone on a project like that would run $5 million. It also considered building canals that would allow floodwaters to move around the school, Colvard said.
These options would turn the school into an “island.” That’s a problem because schools shouldn’t merely be safe in an emergency, Colvard said, they should also be accessible places for the community to find food, water and other crucial resources at such times.
Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, D-Torrance, notes that the state treats schools as the “backbone” of emergency response efforts in the event of an earthquake. As the Legislature crafts another state bond measure for school facilities, there have been discussions about how California can also prepare school facilities for the effects of climate changes that have increased the risk of wildfires, heat waves and flooding.
“We’ve been having ongoing discussions about how the bond should acknowledge the realities of climate change,” he said.
One provision that may be added to the bond measure would authorize the state to acquire portable classrooms so that schools can have them quickly in the event of a disaster.
But even a school labeled by FEMA to be a low flooding risk has suffered from a recent major flood.
The tiny Sunol Glenn Unified School District nestled in the hills of eastern Alameda County has one school. A stream, Sinbad Creek runs behind it. Superintendent Molleen Barnes said she never really gave the creek much thought, other than asking local officials to clear out some branches that had gotten stuck under a nearby bridge that passed over it.
The creek usually “ran at a trickle” at a depth of 15 to 17 inches, she said.
Then the night of Dec. 31 and into New Year’s Day, Barnes started getting texts from parents telling her the school grounds were flooding. As an atmospheric river unleashed torrential rains, Sinbad Creek had jumped its banks, surging to 24 feet. The branches under the bridge hadn’t been cleaned out.
“Of course, we’d been in a drought and this hadn’t been on our radar,” Barnes told EdSource. When the water receded the school grounds were covered in 18 inches of mud. Three modular classrooms were knocked off their foundations. Fences toppled. A classroom and an office were damaged. The entire building had to be assessed for mold.
The district didn’t have flood insurance. The damage was estimated at about $1.8 million, Barnes said.
“The school’s 100 years old and it never flooded, “Barnes said. “This isn’t something we’d even thought about.
“Until now.”
Activism
Community Opposes High Rise Development That Threatens Geoffrey’s Inner Circle
City Council chambers were full for the May 17 Planning Commission hearing, and almost all the 40 speakers who had signed up to make presentations talked about the importance of the Inner Circle as part of Oakland and Geoffrey Pete as a stalwart community and business leader who has served the city for decades.

By Ken Epstein
An outpouring of community supporters – young, old, jazz lovers, environmentalists and committed Oakland partisans – spoke out at a recent Planning Commission hearing to support Geoffrey Pete and his cultural center – The Inner Circle – an historic Oakland landmark whose future is threatened by a proposed skyscraper that out-of-town-developer Tidewater Capital wants to build in the midst of the city’s Black Arts Movement and Business District (BAMBD).
City Council chambers were full for the May 17 Planning Commission hearing, and almost all the 40 speakers who had signed up to make presentations talked about the importance of the Inner Circle as part of Oakland and Geoffrey Pete as a stalwart community and business leader who has served the city for decades.
The speakers argued passionately and persuasively, winning the sympathy of the commissioners, but were ultimately unsuccessful as the Commission unanimously approved the high-rise to be built either as a residential building or office tower on Franklin Street directly behind Geoffrey’s building.
Mr. Pete has said he would appeal the decision to the City Council. He has 10 days after the hearing to file an appeal on the office building. His appeal on the residential tower has already been submitted.
Mr. Pete said the Planning Department still has not published the boundaries of the BAMBD. “Tidewater’s applications and subsequent applications should not be approved until the Planning Department fully acknowledges the existence of the BAMBD,” he said.
“This (proposed) building poses a grave danger to the historic (Inner Circle) building next to it, arguably Oakland’s most meaningful historic building,” Pete said.
“We’re here to advocate for what’s best for the African American district and community that has gotten no representation, no advocacy, as of yet,” he said. “The (commission) is guilty, the City of Oakland is guilty, and Tidewater is guilty.”
One of the first speakers was Gwendolyn Traylor, known as Lady SunRise, who directly addressed the developers.
“With all due to respect to your business, it’s not a need of this community. I would like to ask you to reconsider the location …What is being (promised) here does not add to the healing of this community,” she said.
Naomi Schiff of the Oakland Heritage Alliance emphasized that Geoffrey’s Inner Circle is a treasure of Oakland’s history.
“Our first concern is the integrity of the historic district, in particular the former Athenian-Nile Club, now Mr. Pete’s equally historic venue, which has been the location of a great number of important community events,” she said. “It would not be OK with us if the integrity of the building were damaged in any way, no matter how much insurance (the developer bought) because it is very difficult to repair a historic building once it’s damaged.”
The Inner Circle was previously owned and operated by the Athenian-Nile Club, one of the Bay Area’s largest all-white-male exclusive private membership club, where politicians and power brokers closed back-room deals over handshakes and three martini lunches.
Cephus “Uncle Bobby X” Johnson pointed out that commissioners and the city’s Planning Department have “acknowledged that you went through the entire design review process without even knowing that the Black Arts Movement and Business District existed.”
The district was created in 2016 by City Council resolution. “At the heart of the opposition to this building is the desire to further the legacy of local Black entertainment and entrepreneurship exemplified by businesses like Mr. Pete’s … a historical landmark and venue (that serves) thousands of people who listen to jazz and other entertainment and hold weddings, receptions, and memorial services,” said Uncle Bobby.
This development is taking place within a context in which the “Black population in Oakland has decreased rapidly … because of the city’s concentration on building houses that are not affordable for people who currently live in Oakland,” he said.
John Dalrymple of East Bay Residents for Responsible Development said, “This project will result in significant air quality, public health, noise, and traffic impacts. He said the city has not adequately studied the (unmitigated) impacts of this project on the Black Arts Movement and Business District.
“This project is an example of what developers are being allowed to do when they don’t have to follow the law, and they don’t have to be sensitive to our city’s culture and values,” he said. The commission should “send a signal today that we will no longer be a feeding ground for the rich.”
Prominent Oakland businessman Ray Bobbitt told commissioners, “Any decision that you make is a contribution to the systemic process that creates a disproportionate impact on Black people. Please do yourself a favor, (and) rethink this scenario. Give Mr. Pete, who is a leader in our community, an opportunity to set the framework before you make any decision.”
Though the City Council created the BAMBD, the 2016 resolution was never implemented. The district was created to “highlight, celebrate, preserve and support the contributions of Oakland’s Black artists and business owners and the corridor as a place central historically and currently to Oakland’s Black artists and Black-owned businesses.”
The district was intended to promote Black arts, political movements, enterprises, and culture in the area, and to bring in resources through grants and other funding.
Activism
Community Meeting on Crime and Violence
Join Oakland City Councilmember Dan Kalb to discuss the uptick in crime and violence in District 1 and across Oakland. Representatives from the Oakland Police Department will be in attendance. This event will be held in-person and online.

Join Oakland City Councilmember Dan Kalb to discuss the uptick in crime and violence in District 1 and across Oakland. Representatives from the Oakland Police Department will be in attendance. This event will be held in-person and online.
Tuesday, May 30, 2023
6:30 p.m. – 8 p.m.
Oakland Technical H.S. Auditorium
300-340 42nd St.
Oakland, CA 94611
For more information, contact District 1 Chief of Staff Seth Steward: ssteward@oaklandca.gov, 510-238-7013.
Bay Area
UniverSoul Circus Opens in Richmond
Described by show organizers as a highly interactive combination of circus arts and theatre that spans musical genres, UniverSoul Circus will feature flipping motorcycles, stilt dancers, Fire Limbo Benders, ancestral carnival characters, clowns, flamboyantly costumed dancers and more “in a celebration of energy.”

By Kathy Chouteau | The Richmond Standard
UniverSoul Circus kicked off its Bay Area run under the Big Top at Hilltop Mall last week with the performances continuing during various times through Sun., June 19.
The UniverSoul Circus is a single ring circus, established in 1994 by Cedric Walker and Calvin “Casual Cal” Dupree, an African American man who had a vision of creating a circus with a large percentage of people of color performing. He began searching for people from all around the world with incredible talents. Richmond police Chief Bisa French and City Manager Shasa Curl were set to be guest ringmasters for the opening night show.
Described by show organizers as a highly interactive combination of circus arts and theatre that spans musical genres, UniverSoul Circus will feature flipping motorcycles, stilt dancers, Fire Limbo Benders, ancestral carnival characters, clowns, flamboyantly costumed dancers and more “in a celebration of energy.”
“Get ready to be amazed and frightened at the terrifying, gravity- defying acrobats on the Wheel of Death or the bold, breathtaking daredevils on the High Wire,” said UniverSoul Circus in a statement about the show.
This season’s theme is, ‘We All Belong,’ according Walker, the circus founder and CEO. “We all belong to one human race. Everyone is coming together, different cultures, different people, a new transcultural fusion, a new generation inclusive and together in a UniverSoul Experience!”
Venue:
Hilltop Mall
2200 Hilltop Mall Rd, Richmond, CA 94806
Showtimes:
Thurs-Fri: 7:00 p.m.
Sat: 11:30 a.m., 3:30 p.m., 7:30 p.m.
Sun: 11:00 a.m., 2:30 p.m., 6:30 p.m.
Box Office Hours:
Tues: 11:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Wed-Fri: 11:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Sat: 9:00 a.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Sun: 9:00 a.m. – 7:30 p.m.
Mon: 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. (Memorial Day)
Tickets range from $27.50 to $60 depending on your seat and you can purchase them on Ticketmaster. Visit www.universoulcircus.com for more info.
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