North Bay is flooding from tides and it hasn't even rained

And four days of washed out roads tonight. It is starting to sink in for some North Bay communities that this may be just a taste of what's to come this winter season. Low places are inundated and people are kayaking down the roads and that's absolutely insane. All of this flooding with no rain and a wet winter looming. Good evening, everyone. I'm Mike Meebeck. And I'm Claudine Wong. This week, San Anselmo became the latest Marin County jurisdiction to declare a state of emergency in anticipation of El Nino, but it won't address the flooding that is already here. All week long, Sky Fox has been out capturing the flooding in those Those low-lying communities along or even near the... the bay from Mill Valley to Marin City, Corte Madera, Tiburon, with this coastal flood advisory now extended all the way through Sunday. KTVU's Tom Vacar has been following the damage. He joins us live tonight from Larkspur, which also, Tom, had some strong tidal flooding today. Indeed it did, and I want to show you something, because this wasn't here a few days ago. What you're looking at here is the... The beginnings of a levee that they've created here, probably more to keep wave action out because water leaks through here in many, many different places. But right behind that is Corte Madera Creek, and that often floods over into this area. But you can see that repair is underway. Now, El Nino has been showing his teeth for months. But Thanksgiving and Christmas, we'll see the moon, the sun, and the earth line up in a dangerous tide-raising row. Today's tidal flooding in Greenbrae came very fast, catching lots of folks a bit flat-footed. The water was just gushing like Niagara Falls down. You wouldn't have been able to be down where you are now. This is absolutely worse than it's ever been. Lately, local Super El Nino emergency declarations are mounting like baseball cards. The governor declared a statewide emergency last month. Marin County, the poster child for dealing with sea level rise, declared a local emergency to deal with the added impacts of a Super El Nino. Corte Madera, Larkspur, San Anselmo, San Rafael, Sausalito, and Tiburon Have all done the same thing. I think that that's absolutely necessary. It's much more widespread. It's all over the county, all over the low places are inundated. That's more than we've ever had to deal with before. The full moon affecting the tides. And so it's not really surprising me that much. Is it happening more often in your opinion? Since it's been happening. Yes, it's been consistent. Tides have been flooding low-lying places since before there were human beings. But what's going on here is somewhat different because there's no wind, there's no rain, and there's no waves. And this is happening in the summer and in the fall. This is the effects of sea level rise and El Nino. In my experience, I've been working here for many years. I've never seen this high before. I started working here since I was 14 years old. Twenty-plus years ago, and never seen this high in this kind of time. Emergency declarations allow municipalities to get resources fast, streamline and debureaucratize approval and bidding processes, as well as facilitate state and federal aid, and also help municipalities coordinate with other government entities. Declaring an emergency isn't a silver bullet. It doesn't solve problems. It raises awareness. And puts the problem on the map. But a lot of politicians have done very little for a lot of years. Now, scientists know El Ninos, born in the warm waters of the equator, will get worse. Because as the Earth gets warmer, so will the equatorial waters that give super El Ninos a lot more chances to grow. And that is the situation, and I'm sure we'll be covering this a lot more. Reporting live, Tom Bakar, KTVU, Fox 2. And Tom, I mean, King Tides, throwing a big winter storm, power outages, rising water. My biggest fear, if I were a resident in those low-lying communities, would be getting trapped. Do you think these cities and towns will be encouraging residents, even before the storms come, to get ready to evacuate in some instances? I think that that's a part of many of these plans is that they're going to have evacuation plans primarily because they don't want to be in a situation where they have to send First responders in there to deal with something that may be very difficult to deal with because of the currents of water that could be flowing. It isn't just necessarily just sitting water. So I think they will have evacuation plans. I think that's part of the emergency planning. And on top of that, I think that what's going to happen is that they're going to insist that a lot of people do things with their property that they have to do because, as I say, this place leaks like a sieve. Tom Veika, live tonight in Larkspur. Tom, appreciate it. Thank you. All right, Chief Meter.