The first thing Bilqees (Bell) Ubadi shouts across Pond Road at an approaching reporter is: “No one has come. No one has done anything.”

There aren’t many secrets in this tiny northern Kern County community that consists of about 15 homes, Ubadi’s Pond Mercantile, and the Pond Elementary School. So, word gets around when a reporter is asking about flood preparations for the coming El Niño winter after the town was almost universally swamped in 2023.

“No officials have come talked to us at all and I’m terrified,” Ubadi said as she pointed to where flood water came up from Poso Creek four miles to the south and quickly overtook the town three years ago. “We got hit twice. First, during the first storm and again a few days later.

“It was the most disgusting water I’ve ever seen.”

Deja Vu All Over Again

Jimmy Mitchell, whose house is just behind the mercantile, said he and his brother-in-law are trying to find sand and buy bags to get ready for the coming El Niño winter. But he fears it won’t be enough. A two-foot-high wall of sandbags he built around his and his mother-in-laws’ homes in 2023 did nothing to keep the water out.

At the time, there was a Caltrans worker in his truck stationed at Peterson Road, about a mile south of town, Mitchell said. He asked the man to honk when the water reached his truck so he’d know how far away it was as he continued piling sandbags.

“I heard him honking and, by then, all I could do was shut off the power and gas and just watch,” Mitchell said.

Debris from his and two other homes filled 18 roll-off dumpsters during the clean up, he recalled.

Even the town’s well was wrecked after flood water left it contaminated.

Supplies in the 2,000-gallon storage tank couldn’t be accessed because all the electrical components were under water, said Kevin White, who with his wife Diane, helps run the Pond Mutual Water Company. Residents were without clean water for weeks.

State grants helped rebuild the well and paid for a new, 42,000 gallon storage tank but if it floods again as deep as 2023 – homes had up to 14 inches of water, he said, water could leak into the well again.

The Whites also said they’ve haven’t heard from any state or county officials about preparations for this coming winter.

“I’m afraid we’re sitting ducks,” Diane White said.

After the 2023 flood, the only reason residents were able to get back into their homes over the course of the next year, Mitchell and Ubadi said, was because of work by volunteers with a nonprofit out of Virginia called God’s Pit Crew.

With El Niño possibly bringing another wet year, residents said, they’re disheartened by the lack of communication from Kern County, Wasco, McFarland, Caltrans or any other agencies about how to prepare, who to call – anything.

Sherry Mitchell, Jimmy’s wife, said the silence is reminiscent of the ‘23 flood.

“No one would talk to us. No one wants to admit who’s responsible for taking care of Poso Creek.”

Nothing has changed since 2023, Jimmy Mitchell said. Even the breaks in Poso Creeks banks haven’t been repaired.

“If it happens again, we’re on our own,” he concluded.

Watch: Pond Flooding in 2023

No One in Charge

In fact, there is no entity “in charge” of Poso Creek.

The Semitropic Water Storage District and Cawelo Water District, both have rights to some Poso water and have diversion structures in the creek. But that’s where their authority starts and ends.

The Northwest Kern Resource Conservation District boundaries encompass the creek from McFarland to the Kern National Wildlife Agency. But it’s not a flood control agency and has no funding source, nor authority to do maintenance in the creek bed.

Even farmers with land along the creek have been told not to clear the channel or they could be sued, according to Mitchell.

After the 2023 flood, politicians talked about finding a fix.

State Sen. Melissa Hurtado had a bill in 2025 that included $21.5 million aimed at flood control on creeks in Kern, Tulare or Kings counties.

The bill ultimately died but a trailer budget bill rolled the same amount of money from Proposition 4 into funding under the Wildlife Conservation Board. That money is still designated for floodplain and habitat restoration projects in Kern, Tulare or Kings counties, according Executive Director Jen Norris.

“Applications for this funding have been open since the money landed in our budget last fall,” Norris said. “We’ve had a few applications, but nothing for Poso.”

She said the board has reached out to resource conservation districts in the south valley, nudging them to bring projects to the board. But, she stressed, the money can’t be used for things like research, land acquisition or cleaning out creek beds. The language that came with the money mandates it “shall” be used for floodplain and habitat restoration.

“We understand this is focused on floodplains and rivers. If a project also has good habitat restoration and it’s in those counties, we would definitely consider it,” Norris said.

The non-profit conservation group River Partners, working with the City of McFarland, is putting together an application for a 60-acre floodplain restoration project along the Poso a few miles southeast of McFarland, according to River Partners spokesman Alex Karolyi. That would give flood water space to spread out and slow down so the creek, hopefully, wouldn’t back up and overrun its banks.

But that project is still only a possibility and, if approved, wouldn’t be completed for years.

Know Your Vulnerability

For now, Pond residents are left wondering where to turn if El Niño produces record rainfall, as predicted.

The Kern County Fire Department is waiting to see just what El Niño may bring before making specific plans for each community, according to spokesman Andrew Freeborn. It has already approved keeping wildfire hand crews on for the remainder of the year.

“That gives us dozens of extra, able-bodied employees,” Freeborn said. In the meantime, he said, residents in flood-prone areas need to know their own level of vulnerability and prepare accordingly.

Other than that, Kern County Public Works is cleaning out some sumps and culverts near areas known to flood, according to an email from Public Works Director Joshua Champlin.

In past floods, the department has deployed long-reach excavators to pull debris from Poso Creek at the railroad trestle east of Highway 99. Debris pileups there can push water through several dairies, bringing manure-laced muck into homes in east McFarland, as happened in 1997.

For Pond, the more immediate threat is further west – the bridge at Highway 43.

A massive debris jam there forced Poso over its banks in 2023.

Years of neglect have left the banks crowded with trees and shrubs and even the creek bed has narrowed by several feet, Diane White said.

“Man, if someone would clear that out, we probably wouldn’t get hit so hard,” she said.

‘It’s Criminal’

“The citizens of Pond, all they get is a lot of lip service,” said retired farmer and Pond Union Elementary School District Trustee Don Ludy. He grew up on Peterson Road just south of Pond and remembers fish from the Poso flopping in his own front yard when the creek overflowed in years past.

Flooding is a well-known occurrence whenever the Poso sweeps down enough debris that it collects on the bridge at Highway 43, he said.

“It dams up real quick right there,” Ludy said. “In ‘23, I offered my own bulldozers to clear the channel but the county turned me down and wouldn’t pre-position equipment on that bridge to keep the trash from building up.”

He said Kern County is to blame for the lack of action to protect Pond.

“They know they have these floods and they know they have the ability to mitigate it just by clearing out the channel. But no. They say they don’t have the taxing authority to raise the money and can’t get the permits.

“In a nutshell, it’s criminal that there’s no recognition of the hazard to all these people.”

About the Reporter

SJV Water CEO and editor Lois Henry has spent 30 years covering the San Joaquin Valley.

About SJV Water

SJV Water is an independent, nonprofit news site covering water in the San Joaquin Valley, www.sjvwater.org. Email us at sjvwater@sjvwater.org