Residents of the Kern River Valley are no strangers to storms and extreme weather. Back in March, precipitation brought major flooding to areas of the valley, including Kernville, and those floods brought extensive property damage. With more rain expected on Sunday and Monday, some residents are worried, but some not so much. 23ABC's Corey O'Leary has more.
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00:00 Now we check in with the Kern River Valley to learn more about how residents up there are feeling about the incoming storm.
00:06 Here's 23 ABC's Corey O'Leary.
00:08 Residents of the Kern River Valley are no strangers to storms and extreme weather.
00:13 Back in March, precipitation brought major flooding into areas of the valley, including right here in Kernville.
00:20 And these floods brought extensive property damage.
00:23 Now, with more rain expected on Sunday and Monday, some of the residents I talked to showed worry.
00:29 Others, not so much.
00:31 Wait and see. Cautiously optimistic.
00:34 That's Beverly Dimitriff, who runs a campground right off the Kern River.
00:37 In March, her campground was flooded, and she was tasked with moving tons of debris that the river deposited on the grounds.
00:43 We do have berms in place to hold back the river, so even if it gets up to between eight and ten grand, we should still be fine.
00:50 Times do the storms just blow over. They do a lot.
00:53 So we'll just wait. If it gets rain here, then we'll watch it.
00:56 I'm going to have somebody here 24 hours.
00:59 Dimitriff says she doesn't think this storm will cause major flooding like the one in March, but if it does, she has made new campsites on higher ground.
01:06 I've created a big area in my back compound, removed all my equipment, stored it someplace else, made 19 campsites back there.
01:14 So we have other spots we can move people to if necessary.
01:17 The Kern County Fire Department says it is increasing staffing at Kern River Valley stations over the weekend in preparation for the storm.
01:23 However, some residents say they aren't worried at all.
01:26 No, we get them every year.
01:28 Director of the Kern River Conservancy Gary Ananian says this storm is different because it will be caused by Hurricane Hillary.
01:34 At this point, we don't really know. This is a storm system that hasn't really been into California in nearly 100 years.
01:40 So it's part of 2023. It's just one thing after another with weather out here.
01:44 Ananian doesn't believe many places in the Kern River Valley are going to see major flooding.
01:48 The only flooding I would probably see is more in the hillsides where there were some burn areas.
01:52 Other residents say the prospect of heavy rain worries them.
01:55 Yeah, if it has a lot of rain, we get flooded out where we live.
02:00 Lake Isabella resident Rocky Houston says the possibility of high winds worries him more than the possibility of rain.
02:07 Because over in Maui, same thing happened. And that's what I'm kind of worried about.
02:15 If you look around, you can see it's, you know, real dry right now.
02:21 It moved about 10 or 12 feet months ago.
02:25 That's Ron Guillotine, who has lived in Wilford Heights for 20 years.
02:28 He's talking about the landslide near his house that was evaluated by geologists earlier this year.
02:33 We're still under an evacuation order, but not mandatory anymore.
02:37 Guillotine told me he would only be worried if he saw a lot of rain in a short amount of time.
02:41 Part that concerned me was the three inches in an hour that some things could happen.
02:48 And I don't think that this far north we're going to get that.
02:52 but I'm not a weatherman.
02:53 Corey O'Leary, 23ABC News, connecting you.