Unfortunately, California isn't alone in this because whatever hits here likely is going to move east also. There are regions where many roads are underwater right now. There are many places where people are saying you can drive these roads but please don't because your car might die out. And this isn't just on the northern California coast, this is throughout the state from San Diego to north of San Francisco. So, it is a good idea to contact Caltrans before you set out to find out if the road or roads you are going to travel on is closed or flooded.
For example, I know sections of Interstate 5 through Los Angeles are about 3 feet underwater which is going to drown anything and likely including a Hummer or Diesel Semi truck. So, unless your vehicle is especially built for driving through deep rivers with a snorkel for an air intake (and even then you might have problems once your drive wheels leave the pavement. I had this problem on the drive to Hana when I lived there and water started coming across the floorboards in the front of the window Ford Van I Owned on Maui then. When my back wheels started losing any pavement to turn on I was worried we were going to be washed into the ocean off a cliff on the road which we nearly were then. I finally asked the whole family except me to go stand over the rear wheels so we wouldn't die that night. This worked enough so we weren't washed off the road to Hana and into the ocean even though it was a near thing with 2 feet of water throwing rocks at our van side and under our van to our right and sweeping from right to left under the van over the cliff and into the ocean. I listened to the locals after that. Don't drive the road to Hana in a big rainstorm because you will be washed into the ocean. This is something to think about if you visit Maui. Because that end of the Island IS a tropical Rain forest that gets 400 to 600 inches of rain in a year.
We likely haven't seen anything as bad as we are going to now since 1997 or 1995 when a bridge over Highway 1 made of cement was lifted up on the Carmel River and thrown 1 mile out into the sea. If you had asked me whether this was possible before it happened I would have said, "Absolutely not!"
However, it happened then along with no one able to drive from Monterey or anywhere on that peninsula off the peninsula. Because Hiway one was closed between Monterey on Highway 1 between Marina and Castroville. Highway 1 was closed because the bridge was thrown 1 mile into the sea by the flood. Many of the homes in that area were completely flooded or destroyed, the mall was under about a foot of water and mud, Mercedes cars were floating in underground garages at banks, Highway 68 was closed at River Road. So, for a couple of days the only way off of the peninsula was flying or by helicopter unless you wanted to swim.
This is what it was like then for many areas from Big Sur north to the Oregon Border in 1997 and in 1995.
And Big Sur people had it the worst and were completely cut off at the Carmel River by the bridge on Highway 1 washed into the sea a mile away and by the road being washed away on a cliff south of Big Sur then for about a month or more. So, helicopters were the only way out of Big Sur, Monterey peninsula and this happened many places along the coast north to Oregon then the last time an El Nino was as severe as this one is now. And this is predicted by weathermen and women to be much worse than those ones. 4 feet of snow in one night in the Sierras is evidence that they might be right. Hopefully, hikers and backpackers and mountain climbers knew this much snow was coming so they survive it.
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