Kings County supervisors declared a preemptive state of emergency on Oct. 13, preparing for potential flooding as forecasters warn of an extraordinarily strong El Niño bearing down on the southern San Joaquin Valley this winter. The move comes more than three years after the Tule River broke through its banks in at least 50 places, and officials say the memory of 2023 — when floodwaters damaged homes, dairies, businesses, roads and infrastructure — is shaping how the county and its web of water agencies are gearing up this time around.
A Resolution Born From Hard Lessons
According to yourcentralvalley.com, supervisors cited potential flooding and severe storm impacts to communities, agricultural lands, roads and essential services when they adopted the resolution. The county pointed directly to 2023, when floods and the Tulare Lake inundation showed that an extended flood emergency can affect Kings County well beyond the acreage that actually goes underwater — hitting workers and livelihoods in the process, as reported by SJV Water. The county's Office of Emergency Services is now coordinating preparedness with county departments and operational-area partners, per the same yourcentralvalley.com report.
Kings County Manager Abraham Valencia said the county is coordinating internally and with external agencies to prepare for possible flooding, per SJV Water. Officials have contacted water agencies, levee districts and municipalities to get ready, and Valencia said the county would monitor higher elevations, noting that flooding to the north or in the mountains could signal where water is headed next. He said the county aims to share information and coordinate with key stakeholders if significant flooding materializes.
Why the Old Tulare Lake Bed Is Ground Zero
The forecast driving all this urgency comes from the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center, which indicated a greater than 90% chance of an extraordinarily strong El Niño for fall and winter 2026-2027, according to yourcentralvalley.com. SJV Water separately reported that the National Weather Service had earlier predicted a strong El Niño was more than 83% likely during January through March. Either way, the target of all that water is well understood locally: the old Tulare Lake bed, the southern San Joaquin Valley's low spot where rivers and streams flow during high water. Once the largest freshwater lake in the West, the dry lakebed refilled with a portion of the 2023 floodwaters after unusually heavy low-elevation snow swept out of the foothills into rivers and dry stream beds that March, inundating tens of thousands of acres, per SJV Water.
Valencia said the county is confident its levee structures are ready, and Kings County has met with various levee districts ahead of the season. The Corcoran levee, which protects the town of 20,000 and its prison when water rises in the lake bottom, was raised in 2023 after sinking from excessive groundwater pumping — the second time it was raised, following earlier work in 2017.
Boswell's Outsized Role in the Basin
Most of the Tulare Lake bottom is owned by J.G. Boswell Farming Company, and Kings County is communicating with the company as part of its preparations, with Valencia working directly with Boswell on flood planning, according to SJV Water. The relationship carries history: in 2023, the Kings County Board of Supervisors ordered Boswell to cut one of its own levees and flood its land to relieve pressure on the surrounding system, a decision also detailed by the Los Angeles Times, which reported supervisors voted to cut the levee on Boswell-owned farmland to buy time for Corcoran. Farmers publicly accused Boswell that year of deliberately flooding them to keep its own land dry and continue farming, the Times reported. The paper also noted the Tulare Lake Basin carries a special exemption from state-required flood control plans, leaving the area without a clear public strategy for managing floodwaters.
That lack of a unifying framework isn't unique to the lake bottom. There is no overarching flood control agency that covers the southern San Joaquin Valley, KVPR reported, and the 2023 floods exposed significant confusion over which agencies had authority and responsibility to protect communities in the path of floodwater. By contrast, KVPR noted the Fresno Metropolitan Flood Control District can store up to 30,000 acre-feet in its Big Dry Creek Reservoir from some foothill streams — a tool the fragmented southern valley largely lacks.
Irrigation Districts Clear Sediment, Plan for Recharge
Downstream agencies are doing their own cleanup. The Lower Tule River Irrigation District approved a project to clear sediment left behind in several river locations by the 2023 flood, according to SJV Water. General Manager Alex Peltzer said preparation could not have prevented the 2023 flooding, particularly within the district's area, because the floodwater exceeded the capacity of the river channel itself.
Elsewhere, water districts are preparing to capture floodwater for groundwater recharge rather than simply letting it run off. The Kings County Water District, managed by General Manager Madalyn Vieira, plans to repair and meter the Old River channel to divert flood flows from the Kings River, per SJV Water. That kind of flood-flow capture planning requires coordination with landowners, the Mid-Kings River Groundwater Sustainability Agency and ditch companies, and will only move forward after the Army Corps of Engineers announces a release from Pine Flat Dam.
Levee Repairs Get a Boost From State Emergency Funds
Upstream, the Kings River Conservancy District maintains 140 miles of federal levees below Pine Flat across Fresno, Kings and Tulare counties, and is currently clearing levee channels and conducting repairs, SJV Water reported. District Manager David Merritt said Gov. Gavin Newsom's state of emergency declaration issued in September helped the district allocate $400,000 in additional work funds. That declaration allows regulatory agencies to prioritize permits for local water-channel clearing. In 2023, the city of Merced sued the California Department of Fish and Wildlife over alleged delays in permits. Merced said at the time that the delays led to creeks backing up and overflowing across neighborhoods. This time, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife has announced that landowners and agencies need not provide advance notice for emergency stream work during the current El Niño emergency.
Other California counties are running similar playbooks. San Luis Obispo County, drawing on its own 2023 flood lessons, had its Public Works Department inspecting roads, culverts and drainage systems, according to a report via Yahoo News. That county's preparation included a virtual storm-readiness meeting with the sheriff's office, Public Works, the Office of Emergency Services and CAL FIRE all at the table.
For now, Kings County residents can sign up for emergency alerts through the county Office of Emergency Services website, and sandbag pickup information is available through the office's social media, per SJV Water. Valencia urged residents to stay informed, heed warnings and prepare for an emergency before the storms arrive.
