About a hundred residents in the small town of Maxwell in Northern California were evacuated from their homes, some by boat, early Saturday morning because of major flooding after a powerful storm moved through the region.

Water flooded several residential streets and roads in parts of the rural town of 1,100 in Colusa County as local creeks, streams and tributaries overflowed from heavy rains, snowmelt and runoff, said Janice Bell, a technician in the Colusa County Sheriff’s Department Office of Emergency Services.

“We used some boats to access the residents,” Bell said. “It really became overwhelming suddenly overnight.”

All the evacuees were taken to Maxwell High School around 2:30 a.m. Saturday, Bell said. About 40 of them, some with pets, then traveled by bus through the flooding to a Red Cross shelter in Williams, a town 14 miles away, she said.

Click here to read full story on LATimes.com.