Since New Year’s, storm after storm had pummeled the state, dropping epic quantities of water and snow. Houses and farms and dairies flooded, and people were using excavators to hastily build earthen dikes around their properties. In a valley where powerful interests had long jockeyed for access to water, the arguments were now about who would bear the flood. A froth of brown storm water started to spread toward the houses. Had someone intentionally cut the levee, jeopardizing Allensworth, not to mention someone else’s farm, to save his own?

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Persons: Deanna Jackson, Gonzales, Ruben Guerrero, Floodwater, Jack Mitchell, Allensworth, ” Guerrero, ”, Kiara Rendon, Denise Kadara, Allen Allensworth, Kadara, Rendon Organizations: Cal Fire, Navy Locations: Year’s, Tulare, Allensworth, ”, California, farmworkers