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LODI — Dozens filled the Lodi Unified School District board room on Tuesday ready to fight for their school.

Some had harsh words for district officials as parents lined up in a last-ditch effort to keep them from voting to shut down Houston School in Acampo. The school has seen a dramatic drop in enrollment in recent years, putting it on the chopping block.

The board voted 7-0 to shut down Houston School in two years.

"Well, I've been going there since kindergarten. I've been going there my whole life. It's a good school," said 8th-grade student Algon Padilla.

"It's a legacy. This school is a legacy. I'm a property owner. I pay property taxes to make sure my kids go to school down the street," said parent Lisa Graci.

Graci went to Houston School and so did her children. She said shutting it down will lead to disaster, including safety and transportation problems getting kids to different schools in the area.

"I understand this is difficult," said Associate Superintendent Neil Young.

Young said larger school campuses can offer more support for students. Houston School has a near-500 student capacity but only has roughly 200 students enrolled.

"We know that is a concern of our families," Young said. "It really is more difficult at a smaller school site. This board has a fiscal responsibility as well as looking at what is best for students."

Houston School is hardly alone with schools across California battling declining enrollment. Young blames declining birth rates and the number of families living within the Houston School boundaries continuing to shrink.

Parents like Graci don't buy it, saying school officials aren't doing enough to boost enrollment and retain students.

"It's all about saving the dollar. It's every child comes first unless you can save a few bucks," said Graci.

It will be a two-year process to close Houston School with the first round of 7th and 8th graders switching to Lockeford and Millswood for the 2023-24 school year. Then, K-6th students will move to Victor the following school year.

Marlee Ginter

Marlee Ginter is an Emmy Award-winning investigative journalist. She joined CBS13 in January 2020 from WOOD TV8 in Grand Rapids. Prior to that she worked at KOMO TV in Seattle, Washington; WISH TV in Indianapolis, Indiania; WSPA TV in Spartanburg, South Carolina; and WTOC TV in Savannah, Georgia.

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Widespread downpours and snowfall are expected to hit Northern California this weekend, bringing with them potential flooding throughout the Central Valley.

The National Weather Service said gusty winds and heavy rain will arrive Thursday via the latest atmospheric river. An atmospheric river is a long, narrow band of tropical moisture that can transport enormous amounts of water vapor from regions near the equator to Northern California.

When atmospheric rivers move over land, they can produce intense rainfall and strong winds, and colder systems can produce significant snow at higher elevations.

According to the NWS, the Sierra Nevada Mountains could see as much as four feet of snow at elevations between 7,000 and 8,000 feet, and as much as eight feet of snow above elevations of 9,000 feet from this weekend’s system.

Increased run-off from rain and snowmelt will lead to swollen waterways in the foothills and the Central Valley, particularly on Friday, the NWS said.

The Central Valley could see as much as three inches of rain between Thursday and Sunday, the agency said.

Flooded roadways and and moderate rises on small streams, rivers and creeks are expected.

Andrea Pook, spokeswoman for East Bay Municipal Utilities District, said the agency will be monitoring both the rainfall and the snow pack on a daily basis throughout the weekend.

During the rainfall that hit the region over the last few days, Pook said EBMUD increased the release of water at Camanche Reservoir from 1,300 to 1,700 cubic feet per second.

The agency might have to increase that to between 2,500 and 3,000 cfs, depending on what happens this weekend, she said.

As of March 7, EBMUD reported the reservoir was 75% full. Pardee, upstream of Camanche, was at 89% capacity.

“We have plenty of flood control space available, which is good news,” Pook said. “But we will want to adjust our releases based on how severe the storms are this weekend.”

Tiffany Heyer, San Joaquin County Office of Emergency Services director, said her department is currently working with several other entities in preparation for the storms.

Those entities include San Joaquin County Public Works, Human Services Agency, Sheriff’s Office, and cities.

“We will likely see water ponding in low-lying areas or on roadways due to rainfall amounts, so residents are encouraged to not go around barricades or drive through flooded roadways,” she said. “Residents can also sign up for alerts and get more information by visiting SJReady.org.”

Mary Campbell, spokeswoman for the City of Lodi, said public works and electric utility crews are prepared to act as needed throughout the duration of the incoming storm.

The Public Works & Electric Utility Hotline is monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week during significant weather events, she said, and residents can call 209-368-5735 to report emergencies.

Use Option 2 to report roadway flooding, downed trees, or clogged storm drains, and Option 1 to report power outages.

The city’s live power outage map can be found online at www.lodi.gov/915/Power-Outage. For downed power lines or other storm-related emergencies, dial 911.

The self-serve sandbag station for Lodi residents is open at west end of Century Boulevard at Stockton Street and Salas Park, and will be available through the weekend while supplies last.

Residents are asked to bring their own shovels, but bags will be provided

The city said minor street flooding should be anticipated, and if you encounter flooded roadways, turn around and take an alternative route if possible.

“We want residents to stay safe and be prepared as we enter into another round of storms in our region this week,” she said. “We expect to see rain, high winds, and thunderstorm activity, which may result in localized flooding, road closures, and damaged trees and power lines. We encourage residents to exercise caution while driving and avoid driving through flooded streets if possible since vehicle ‘wakes’ can cause further damage.”

The City of Lodi announced Tuesday that Enchanted Rock, LLC began construction of a 48-megawatt power generating unit on May 8.

The facility will be located adjacent to the city’s water treatment plant on Turner Road just west of Lodi Lake.

The power plant is scheduled to be operational by the end of the summer, the city said.

Motorists and pedestrians are being asked to use extreme caution while traveling near the construction area.

This project is being fully funded by the California Department of Water Resources as part of the state’s Strategic Reliability Reserve Program — an effort to safeguard the state’s energy system in the face of drought, wildfires, and heat waves that impacting its energy grid.

The facility would create anywhere between 20 and 48 megawatts of emergency power and be delivered directly into Lodi, rather than be transferred through a third-party system.

In addition, it will only be used in extreme peak-demand events to provide temporary power generation to stabilize and supplement existing grid-tied power supplies to avoid grid failures both statewide and locally, the city said.

Lodi Electric Utility staff will be installing the necessary electrical infrastructure to support these efforts — the cost of which will be fully reimbursed by DWR.

The facility is being built after the city experienced two straight days of lengthy power outages last September.

On the afternoon Sept. 6, the Northern California Power Agency, which supplies most of Lodi’s energy, said its dispatch center was contacted by Cal ISO with an order a dispatch operator understood as a request to shed 46.02 MW of power to prevent widespread outages.

The dispatcher then contacted several cities, including Lodi, to temporarily turn off power to some customers in those communities.

Power was shut off for about 45 minutes in the neighborhoods of Park West, Lodi West, Harvest Crossing and Bridgetowne neighborhoods, affecting 1,372 residents

The very next night, residents were without power for several hours after an unexpected equipment failure at the city’s industrial substation near Lodi and Guild avenues.

Lodi’s energy is delivered through three PG&E sub-transmission lines, the city said, adding a set of protection relays on one of the lines failed that morning. Although Lodi Electric Utility replaced the relays, a PG&E technician was required to approve the repairs, the city said.

With one relay down, the city said it was required to shed power, and at 4:14 p.m. Wednesday, was ordered to shed 35MW within 15 minutes.

One-hour, rotating outages throughout the city began at 4:30 p.m. in order to not overload the two active relays and shut the entire energy system down, the city said.

Some residents lost power twice during the outage rotations.

At the peak of the curtailment, the city said about 8,700 customers were without power.

The project will also help mitigate power import constraints in Lodi during extreme weather events and local emergencies until upgrades are completed to Lodi’s transmission inter-tie with PG&E as part of the Northern San Joaquin 230 kV Transmission Project.

For more information about this project as well as California’s Strategic Reliability Reserve Program, please visit www.water.ca.gov/What-We-Do/Power.

The National Weather Services’ Sacramento office on Friday said at least three more storm systems are expected to drench the state over the next five days, with moderate precipitation bringing as much as two inches of rain in the Central Valley this weekend.

As much as five inches of rainfall is expected in the foothills, the agency said.

The heaviest rain of this first system will be falling Saturday, and the agency has issued a flood watch through 7 a.m. Sunday.

The agency is also warning of gusty winds on Saturday, which could be as high as 55 miles an hour and ending at 6 p.m.

During a press conference Friday afternoon, officials said two more storm systems are expected Monday and Wednesday.

The strong winds and heavy rainfall the Lodi region has experienced since New Year’s Eve is something Acampo Tree Service owner Ken Job has never seen.

“I’ve been doing this more than 40 years, and this is hands down, the most amount of downed trees and power lines I’ve ever seen,” he said. “It’s unreal.”

Job was unable to estimate how many trees his crews have either trimmed or removed after falling, but said they have been working through early hours of the morning on many occasions over the last two weeks.

“My son was out until 2 a.m. during the last storm,” Job said. “We’ve got a crane that travels with us now, and most of our calls have been taking trees off of homes.”

The worst incident he’s seen so far was a large Douglas Fir that crushed a garage on the 1200 block of South Church Street last Tuesday.

With more wind and rain coming to the area this weekend, Job said he’s lining crews up to go out and respond to calls.

“We’re getting several calls a day,” he said. “We have people on the phone who are just very emotional, and you can’t help but feel sorry for them. In some cases, they’ve lost everything because their homes are just devastated.”

Joe Valente, director of the North San Joaquin Water Conservation District, said farmland in the area is experiencing “typical flooding,” but nothing that would require residents to leave their homes.

Residents that have been dislocated, he said, have done so because trees have landed on dwellings, or the high winds have torn sections of roof away, causing rain to get inside structures.

“This rainfall will help recharge our underground aquifers,” he said. “We’ve been in a drought, and this is a great opportunity to fill our reservoirs, and it’s a plus. Hopefully we won’t have any flooding.”

Valente hopes residents both in the city limits and in the unincorporated area will take precautions when driving on streets and roads.

“People need to respect when roads are closed, and when barriers are up,” he said. “There’s a lot of water on the roads, and sometimes power lines are down, and they’re blocked or closed for a reason. We need to be mindful of that and use caution. We’ve got to be patient when we’re driving.”

Nelsy Ramirez, spokeswoman for East Bay Municipal Utilities District, said the agency is handling the storm relatively well, although there is spillage at Upper San Leandro and Chabot reservoirs in Alameda County.

In the Central Valley, the agency is currently releasing 3,500 cubic feet of water per second from Pardee and to Camanche reservoirs, the former of which was at 96% capacity as of Jan. 11.

Camanche was at 73% capacity, and EBMUD’s entire system was at 84% capacity.

“We plan to stay at that level through this weekend’s storm, and reassess early next week,” Ramirez said. “In general, this month keeps us on track for one of our wetter years. It is shaping up like the winter of 2017, which ended California’s longest drought on record. So we are making significant progress on the water supply front.”

San Joaquin County is now eligible for FEMA aid.

One day after being left off the list of counties that would receive federal disaster assistance, the county has now been added to a Federal Emergency Declaration in response to a series of winter storms that have battered California and caused millions of dollars in damages locally.

“San Joaquin County needs support, and now federal resources are finally heading our way,” Rep. Josh Harder, D-Manteca, said in a Tuesday media statement.

Now, the county is eligible for Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency Category B measures which include flood fighting; evacuation and sheltering; medical care and transportation; use and lease of temporary power generators; elimination of threats on public or private property; construction of temporary structures; emergency repairs to prevent further damage; and extracting and clearing water, mud, and other forms of debris.

Tiffany Heyer, director of San Joaquin County’s Emergency Operations, told the board of supervisors on Tuesday that state officials used a “predictive model” to identify which counties could be used to “preposition” resources ahead of a disaster when reviewing federal assistance requests.

San Joaquin County was initially not included on the list.

However, Heyer said state and federal resources requested by the county were available if needed.

She said her staff is ready to ask for funding to reimburse disaster expenditures, which is estimated at $7 million throughout the county.

The county issued a state of emergency proclamation on Jan. 1, after a storm unleashed heavy rainfall and destructive winds on New Year’s Eve that resulted in flooding, toppled trees and downed power lines across the region.

Areas in the county initially impacted the most were in the north near the Mokelumne River, Heyer said, as power outages and water pump issues caused problems and hazards for residents.

During the storm on New Year’s weekend, more than 38,000 residents across the county were without power, Heyer said.

Many residents in the county’s New Hope area who were either without power or were anticipated to be caught in major flooding were relocated to the Lodi Grape Festival, she said.

Grape Festival manager Mark Armstrong said Tuesday morning that it had been about 15 years since the facility had been used to accommodate residents displaced by heavy storms.

“We’ve got 16 RV right now, and they’ve been here a week,” he said. “We’re active as a shelter for up to 30 days, but I don’t anticipate that this will go on that long. And we’re on standby for people who are evacuated from their homes.”

With more storms anticipated to affect the region through next week, Heyer said her agency is adequately staffed to handle any emergencies the county might encounter.

“The current storm activity has produced unseasonable and above-normal amounts of precipitation in short periods of time in our region that our roads and water systems are finding difficult to process,” Heyer told supervisors.

“Winds have taken down trees and power lines throughout the county,” she added. “OES, as well as our city, district and county partners, continue to respond to calls for service, address emergency conditions and repair infrastructure.”

Lodi Unified School District closed five sites on Monday due to power outages, including Middle College High School on the San Joaquin Delta College campus. Turner Academy was still without power as of 6 a.m. Tuesday and remained closed, Lodi Unified spokeswoman Chelsea Vongehr said.

The City of Lodi closed the Vinewood Dog Park and basin Tuesday until Public Works Department crews can clear all unstable trees in the redwood grove.

The sidewalk area around the outside of the park on Virginia Avenue was also closed to pedestrian traffic.

The city also said crews worked through Monday night to address downed trees and power poles.

As of Monday, the city placed all personnel under “on call” status, expanding maintenance and inspection activities, and proactively replacing aging and failing infrastructure.

Staff also increased vegetation management work; brought in additional outside line crews as needed, and brought in additional outside crane services to assist with tree removal and infrastructure rebuild efforts.

The National Weather Service’s Sacramento office said the Galt and Lodi areas are both under flood advisories, and a thunderstorms may be possible throughout the week.

Winds could be as high as 24 miles an hour through Wednesday, with temperatures in the mid-40s to high 50s through the week.

Showers are expected through Sunday, the agency said.