KINGS COUNTY, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – Nearly six months after the initial flood of the Tulare Lake Basin, the water has mostly dried up.

If you head down 6^th Avenue south of Corcoran, what once appeared to be a forever-growing sea of water beyond the city’s levee, has been reduced down to a much different sight.

Remnants of crops now peek through the water, and the road itself revealed more and more every day.

A shop that sits right off 6^th Avenue has now been completely lifted out of the water, a watermark several feet high stains its sheet metal walls.

“There’s been drastic receding of water. It’s dropped dramatically. At its height, it was about 120,000 acres flooded, and we’re down under about 50,000 now,” said Sgt. Nate Ferrier with the Kings County Sheriff’s Office.

While the area is not exactly reminiscent of its former self, with a thick layer of dirt covering nearly everything, the receding water is a step in the right direction.

However, even though roads may now be more visible, many in the region remain difficult or impossible to drive on.

“A lot of the roads are still in disarray. The water wreaked havoc on them. I know our roads department are working on getting those repaired, so they can be traveled again. Um, and there’s still some roads that are flooded down there. So, again, if the road is closed, we’re telling people don’t drive around the barricade and drive into the water,” said Ferrier.

And while it is a vastly different scene for farmland one would not guess ever existed back in May, much of the damage has already been done by the receding waves, and has left millions of dollars in destruction.

“It’ll take some time to rebuild all that, but you know our farming community’s really resilient, and I know they’re gonna come back better than ever down there,” said Ferrier.

Even though there are still tens of thousands of acres underwater in the Tulare Lake Basin, Ferrier says at the rate the water is receding it could be gone by the end of the coming winter.