Support for LAist comes from
Become a sponsor
Audience-funded nonprofit news
Donate
Stay Connected

LAist is part of Southern California Public Radio, a member-supported public media network.

Audience-funded nonprofit news
Listen
Donate
Podcasts Take Two
El Niño brings some relief to parched East Porterville
solid orange rectangular banner
()
Take Two Logo
Mar 18, 2016
Listen • 6:29
El Niño brings some relief to parched East Porterville
At the height of the drought, wells in East Porterville dried up. Water jugs had to be home-delivered and free public showers were set up.
In this July 2, 2015 photo, groves of citrus trees sit below a barren hillside in Tulare County, outside of Porterville, Calif. Farming in Tulare County brought in $7.8 billion in 2013, more than any other county in the nation, according to the agricultural commissioner here. But with little water now from the meager Sierra Nevada snowpack, some farmers are getting only a tiny fraction of their historic surface water, and so are drilling ever-deeper, draining the groundwater. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
In this July 2, 2015 photo, groves of citrus trees sit below a barren hillside in Tulare County, outside of Porterville, Calif. Farming in Tulare County brought in $7.8 billion in 2013, more than any other county in the nation, according to the agricultural commissioner here. But with little water now from the meager Sierra Nevada snowpack, some farmers are getting only a tiny fraction of their historic surface water, and so are drilling ever-deeper, draining the groundwater. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
(
Gregory Bull/AP
)

At the height of the drought, wells in East Porterville dried up. Water jugs had to be home-delivered and free public showers were set up.

Recently El Niño has been making its presence known a bit, at least in Northern California. 

A series of storms there has rapidly filled  some reservoirs – the one at Lake Shasta is actually above average for this time of year.

But what does this mean for California's ongoing drought? 

We return to the Central Valley town of East Porterville, a place that's been hit especially hard by the drought, to get a better sense.

Take Two chats with Andrew Lockman, emergency manager for Tulare County where East Porterville is located.