Thousands Who Were Evacuated After Coyote Creek Flooding Now Allowed to Return Home

SANTA CLARA COUNTY, CA -- Over 11,000 people affected by a mandatory evacuation order since Coyote Creek started flooding on Tuesday are now being allowed to return to their homes, San Jose city officials said at a news conference in the inundated Rock Springs neighborhood this morning.

Mandatory evacuation zones have shrunk from 14,000 to 3,800 people, assistant city manager David Sykes said. Only 1,100 homes, down from 4,000, remain under mandatory evacuation.

Crews worked nearby pumping brown water that, unlike in the William Street area, is not running back into the creek on its own.

The South Bay, Riverbend and Golden Wheel mobile home parks on Oakland Road, where all 559 mobile homes are still under mandatory evacuation, are also being pumped, fire Capt. Mitch Matlow said.

The flood hit when the South Bay Mobile Home Park was being re-plumbed, according to Matlow. Electricity and gas have been shut off at all three parks.

Councilman Tam Nguyen spoke out on behalf of the mostly Vietnamese-speaking Rock Springs neighborhood, where about 390 homes have been flooded.

Updated information about the flooded areas is now available online in Spanish and Vietnamese as well as English.

Nguyen called for landlords in the Rock Springs neighborhood not to charge their tenants rent for three months because, he said, "for the next couple months or so, I don't think they'll be able to stay here."

A flooded pumping station has temporarily jeopardized sanitary sewer service in the neighborhood, so portable toilets are being delivered today while crews work to fix the problem, city spokesman David Vossbrink said.

The shelters that early this morning were housing 144 people at James Lick High School and 10 people at Evergreen Valley High School will have to move by Monday, but Sykes didn't say where.

Pets should be taken to the San Jose Animal Shelter at 2750 Monterey Road.

A multi-agency, one-stop local assistance center for residents and businesses affected by the flooding will open at the Shirakawa Community Center at 2072 Lucretia Ave. on Saturday, Vossbrink said.

Items like clothing are not needed, but financial donations can be made to the Red Cross at redcross.org/donate/donation or the Silicon Valley Community Foundation at sanjosemayor.org, city officials said.

Story and Image By Bay City News