SACRAMENTO, Calif. — For weeks scenes involving wild weather have meant the state’s emergency services headquarters have been running 24 hours a day.

David Lawrence is a meteorologist for the National Weather Service and is based out of Salt Lake City, Utah, but has been calling Sacramento home since the wild weather began. He said the state has seen lots of record-breaking weather since New Year’s Eve.

“Obviously rain is the big one. Mountain snow, let’s not forget about that. We’ve seen record setting snow fall across the Sierras and some of the other higher peaks. We’ve had rain, snow, wind. We’ve had hail with a few thunderstorms. We even had two brief tornadoes touch downs across the central valley. We’ve pretty much had it all,” he said.

Depending on the severity or calmness of California’s current state, the headquarters operates on a scale of one to three. Since late December, Brian Ferguson, who’s been with the state OES for three years, said they’ve operated at level one, the highest level. Emergency agencies ranging from the Department of Health, the Coast Guard, water resources staff, to FEMA, have been on site.

“The 20 fatalities we’ve had make this amongst the deadliest disasters in the history of our state. And really, just the widespread and ongoing nature of it is something that’s unique. A wildfire may impact one, two, three counties, but to have 41 counties impacted at the same time has really been a challenge,” Ferguson said. 

Ferguson said they’ve also seen a huge number of aerial rescues. At the peak, close to 100,000 people were under evacuation and around 500,000 were without power.

Both Ferguson and Lawrence said emergency personnel have all collaborated at an extremely high level.

Ferguson said for all it’s been nice to catch a short break when appropriate.

“We also do occasionally have to take breaks and have a little bit of fun. Every now and then, a cupcake or two might show up and you can enjoy that,” he said. “Just little things to keep people motivated,”

With clear skies finally breaking through, Lawrence said there will be a bit of rain in parts of the state on Wednesday, then the weather should stay calm, thankfully, for a while to come.