Newsom tours Santa Cruz County, surveying storm damage

CAPITOLA, Calif. (NBC, KYMA/KECY) - The state of California continues to experience heavy damage due to an unrelenting storm.

On Tuesday, Governor Gavin newsroom toured areas of Santa Cruz County impacted by the weather event.

After surveying the damage, the governor then held a press conference where he confirmed the number of deaths, attributed to the storm, are now up to seventeen.

Here is what he told reporters:

"We just experienced in Southern California. They're still experiencing the six atmospheric river and just matter last couple of weeks, which is remarkable in and of itself, until you consider as he just did. The fact that we're not out of the woods. We expect these storms to continue at least through the 18th of this month. We expect a minimum three more of this atmospheric rivers, different shapes and forms, depending on different parts of the state."

Not isolated

On the scale of the damage and confirmed deaths, Newsom also said:

"The magnitude of this is not isolated to smaller communities. It is scaled across the largest state in our union as we've also noticed now we have now 17 confirmed... and I underscore confirmed tragically, just confirmed. Yes, two more related to lightning strikes and a vehicle accident the Tulare County area."

Finally, Newsom had this today in regards of the local communities affected by the storms:

"I want to thank the community for taking care of themselves. It's remarkable just walking through a number of the small businesses. How many of the business men and women the owners of these businesses said people just showed up. They also said they just needed one thing which was gloves. They took it upon themselves to help clear out the debris and try to get this community back on its feet."

The National Weather Service (NWS) reported some areas experienced over 10 inches of rain in the last 12 hours.