California's blockbuster wet season, with another powerful bomb cyclone currently swirling off the coast, has built up a near-record-large Sierra Nevada mountain snowpack.
Life in California often requires navigating the edges of natural beauty and natural disaster. On the fifth anniversary of a catastrophe, residents had to flee again.
A powerful winter storm barreled into Southern California on Monday, forcing the mass evacuation of Montecito and other communities exactly five years after mudslides in the same area left 23 people dead.
Hundreds of homes in the Santa Cruz region were damaged by flooding and wind. Weary residents are steeling themselves for even worse conditions this week.
