The San Joaquin River below Friant Dam is seen in this Friday, Jan. 13 photo by Ben Hensley

With yet another weekend of wet weather forecasted, Valley residents and business owners are preparing to battle the elements.

Flooding in the Fresno area has been controlled for the most part, with a majority of damage contained to streets and street-level structures. With that in mind, public agencies are monitoring conditions in real time and making sandbags available for the most basic level of flood control.

“Our road maintenance crews have been working around the clock through all of these storms checking bridges, checking roads — just making sure that it’s safe for people to get where they need to be,” said Michelle Avalos, Fresno County public information officer.

Currently, Fresno County is operating six sandbag staging zones. The zones, stocked with sand as well as sandbags, are free to the public and only require residents to provide their own shovels.

Bags at pickup locations will be provided.

“We just got a bunch more sandbags delivered,” Avalos said.

Anyone near a river or other potential flood zone is advised to have sandbags.

Avalos added that the County has been reaching out to some of the more rural outlying cities such as Mendota, San Joaquin and Sanger to see how they are doing with their respective areas..

“We will be open to anybody and everybody within the Fresno County area,” Avalos said.

Besides sandbags, Avalos recommends residents avoid travel as much as possible during the storm.

In addition to physical protection, media outlets throughout the state recommend staying informed and keeping an emergency supply of food and water as well as a battery-powered or hand crank radio.

The importance of information

Locally, radio stations are doing all they can to stay on the air despite the storm.

“My show is a sports morning show, so my job is to talk about sports, but I always open up every single show talking about weather and talking about conditions around the Central Valley,” said Jose Gonzalez, program director and host at 1430 ESPN Radio in Fresno. “Radio is the first ability [to receive information] for anybody; it’s in everybody’s car. It’s everywhere.”

Gonzalez said that on Tuesday, the station faced broadcast difficulties due to the weather, with internet outages affecting broadcast and streaming ability, as well as a power failure at one of the station’s transmitter sites.

Following Tuesday’s challenges, Gonzalez said the station is taking extra steps to ensure the ability to broadcast throughout the storm.

Gonzalez will be on call throughout the weekend to respond to emergencies the station may face.

Kathleen Schock, former KVPR host and current Fresno City College journalism instructor, expressed the importance of radio and the responsibility to provide information in times of crisis.

“We had a situation where…the wildfires were threatening our tower up in the mountains,” she said. “The efforts that the station went through to keep the station on the air really speaks to, in my mind, how vital radio is in times of crisis or public emergency.”

Shock added that the digital divide in the Valley also highlights the importance of radio, explaining that for those unable to access the internet from home, radio can provide a reliable source of information more quickly than any other form of media.

County and city officials will continue to monitor conditions, but also recommend being prepared with a basic disaster supply kit. Recommendations on what to pack are listed at ready.gov, a website launched to provide information about steps to take during an emergency.