PORTERVILLE, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – Residents in a Porterville neighborhood were left scrambling for their belongings after flood waters took over their neighborhood.

Several of the homes on Road 216 and Olive Avenue were completely flooded following increasing water levels from the nearby Tule River.

“I was working on my wife’s car and I guess the river burst through on the side right over here,” said Byron Edgar, a resident in Porterville.

Edgar was one of the residents who lived along Olive Avenue and was forced to evacuate.

“We knew something was going to happen, we knew it might break because, with this heavy rain and everything, there was nothing you can do about it,” said Edgar.

Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux said water levels along the Tule River in Porterville were becoming dangerous and they began to issue evacuation orders quickly.

“What happened last night is we noticed a significant increase in water coming out of the spillway,” said Sheriff Boudreaux. “We quickly noticed that the evacuation notice was going to become necessary because of the increased water flow.”

Edgar said he was just a teenager the last time he’d seen anything like this in Porterville.

“I think it was 1969 the last time it happened, cuz I was still in high school,” he said.

As for now, residents are trying to gather as many belongings as possible while they figure out what to do next.