Quincy Wilks

Sandbags have replaced the fire trucks in Brent Hirz's neighborhood, and he waits each day to see how much rain will fall. It's not a scenario he imagined in the early afternoon on Sept. 13, when he got a pre-recorded phone call from Elk Ridge City telling him the town was being put on a pre-evacuation warning. It said to prepare in case a mandatory evacuation became necessary.

A California Highway patrol officer photographs a vehicle involved in a deadly shooting rampage at the Rancho Tehama Reserve, near Corning, Calif., Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2017. A gunman driving stolen vehicles and choosing his targets at random opened fire 'without provocation' in the tiny, rural Northern California town Tuesday, killing several people, including a student at an elementary school, before police shot him dead, authorities said. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

FILE - In this March 21, 2016, file photo, attorney Marc Elias, one of several lawyers who appeared in the in the case of Wittman v. Personhuballah, stands on the plaza of the Supreme Court in Washington. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped fund a political research firm that produced a dossier of allegations about President Donald Trump's ties to Russia. That's according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke on Oct. 24, 2017, to The Associated Press. The person says the arrangement, first reported by The Washington Post, was coordinated by a lawyer for the campaign and the DNC and his law firm. That lawyer, Marc Elias, did not immediately return an email seeking comment. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)