Rio Linda Church Left Underwater By Storms

RIO LINDA (CBS13) — Heavy rain brought flood waters to Rio Linda neighborhoods on Tuesday night, surprising many residents with closed roads on the drive home.

"This all is from that rain storm last night!" said Tom Morris, who has lived in Rio Linda for 30 years. "It rained so hard that I had just cleaned all of my gutters and none of the gutters in my house could hold it."

Morris told CBS13 the water looked like it was receding Tuesday night, so seeing Dry Creek flooded on Wednesday was unexpected.

"It was so bad that cars were getting literally stuck because they could not make it through the water," said Jon Sowul, who had to take a detour around flood water on his way home from dinner. "A lot of people were getting stuck and a lot of people were getting towed out."

Curved Bridge Road was closed due to high water in the low-lying areas. Teenagers spent the afternoon fishing over the field on Dry Creek Road that was dry ground 24 hours earlier.

Sowul made a stop at the Church of Rio Linda, where he used attend as a child. But seeing it underwater came as a shock.

"With a lot of great help from the community, I'm pretty sure people will pitch in and help get that church back together if it has any permanent damage," Sowul said.

The church's pastor, Bob Royer, stopped by the church on Wednesday and braved high water to pick up a few things inside.

"It was a mess last night and then about 9 o'clock, the water started coming in," he told CBS13.

They packed up as many chairs and books as they could, but plenty of church belongings were left inside and are still floating inside in the muddy water.

"There's no way I can say I feel good about it," Royer said. "The only thing is I'm thankful that we do have flood insurance."

The church had a Christmas bake sale last month where they raised all the money they needed to pay for the flood insurance. They're hopeful they can resume services in a few weeks.