Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Wednesday, Feb. 15, and Cupid is gone for another year. Bring on the leprechauns.
I’m Anita Chabria, a columnist with the Los Angeles Times, and your guide for the day to what’s interesting, important or at least gossip-worthy.
When torrential rains left parts of California underwater a few weeks ago, the tiny town of Planada was one of the hardest hit. You’d be forgiven if you’ve never heard of it — I hadn’t.
But for the 4,000 or so mostly Hispanic residents (it is 94% Hispanic according to the last census), it’s a special place where generations have raised families and worked in the surrounding agricultural fields just east of Merced.
Then the levee broke. Residents had only minutes to gather their loved ones and rush for safety.
My colleague Jessica Garrison went to Planada days after the tragedy, and has followed the plight of the residents since. You can read her heart-wrenching story, which published this week. But she was also gracious enough to share some of her own experiences with me, and what went into the reporting.
Garrison said that her first impression driving into Planada was how charming it was.
“Planada sits at the base of the foothills that rise up into the Sierra and Yosemite National Park, and it has a lovely plaza and a gorgeous park,” she said. “But then I looked closer, and I saw dumpsters filled with flood detritus.”
From there, the devastation became obvious.
“At house after house, the front doors were thrown open and I could see people engaged in demolition: pulling moldy drywall off the walls, scraping up floor tiles, hauling out ruined furniture,” Garrison said. “The park near the center of town had been transformed into a bustling disaster aid center. Volunteers were serving hot meals to people who had been displaced, and handing out diapers and bottled water. The town’s water system was damaged in the flood and people couldn’t…