Local agencies, residents react to forecasts of a strong El Niño winter.

Big Sur resident Meredith Gafill remembers back to the El Niño winter of 1997-98, when relentless storms repeatedly knocked out power, including her electric wall heater. The outages often lasted weeks at a time; she’d pull on multiple layers of wool socks to fight off the cold.

“I remember locking myself in the bathroom and taking a long shower, because we had hot water,” she says. “I remember seeing boulders in the middle of the road that were the size of a truck. It was just brutal and tiring.”

Now, Gafill is taking forecasts of another strong El Niño seriously. Her son is helping her refresh the emergency kits in the family’s vehicles with everything from snacks and ponchos to a foldable shovel. Her home, on the grounds of her family’s Nepenthe Restaurant, is stocked with water in case the water lines get knocked out. The property’s hooked up to a propane-powered generator that automatically kicks in if the electricity goes down.

According to a California Department of Transportation history of Big Sur road closures, flooding and landslides from the 1997-98 El Niño closed Highway 1 in 40 places between Carmel and San Simeon – the most damage in the road’s history. Non-residents were evacuated, and helicopters airlifted necessities like food, fuel and mail into Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park. Big Sur Health Center went into overdrive, providing medical care and dispensing prescription meds flown in from Monterey.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration puts the chances of a 2015-16 El Niño winter at greater than 90 percent. Signals indicating it will be especially strong led NASA climatologist Bill Patzert to predict a “Godzilla El Niño” on par with 1997-98.

El Niño events happen when the surface of the Pacific Ocean becomes unusually warm, triggering climate changes across North America. Strong El Niño events tend to bring more winter rains to California.

Sherrie Collins, the county’s emergency services manager, says her team prepares for winter storms and flooding every fall, whether an El Niño is predicted or not. On Sept. 24, the Office of Emergency Services will host a multi-agency workshop to discuss disaster plans and procedures.

“To be honest, we’re not preparing any differently than we would any other season,” she says.

Robert Johnson, deputy general manager for the Monterey County Water Resources Agency, echoes Collins, saying MCWRA is preparing for winter storms regardless of the El Niño forecast. His team oversees the county’s flood warning system, monitoring river levels throughout the county.

Caltrans spokesman Colin Jones has a similar take: His agency is prepping for storms – building retaining walls and netting steep slopes along Highway 1 – but not much differently than any other year. “We have mudslides, rock slides and flooding every winter,” he says. “We’ll be a little extra vigilant this year.”

Gafill says despite all her preparations, she’s not necessarily worried about heavy storms. Even if it cut off road access and power in Big Sur, she says, heavy rain would help alleviate the four-year drought, which brings an elevated risk of catastrophic wildfire.

“If it’s a big El Niño, we’ve done that before,” she says. “It could be another dry winter – which worries me more.”