San Francisco

Man Kayaks in Flooded Wine Country

When natural disasters strike in California, the inner adventurer somehow seems to always kick in.

On Thursday, during the biggest Bay Area storm in half a decade, the rains pelted down in the heart of wine country, flooding downtown Healdsburg, almost two hours north of San Francisco.

The streets had filled with so much water, one young man in a hoodie took to his blue kayak to paddle down Main Street.

The odd sight was captured by Santa Rosa photographer Kent Porter and posted to YouTube.

Earlier in December, it was raining so hard in Marin County's Mill Valley, the NBC Bay Area chopper spotted a man who got to where he needed to go by paddle board.

California is also home to earthquakes - another Mother Nature phenomenon that doesn't seem to get the hard-core outdoors-type down.

When a magnitude-6.0 quake hit Napa in August, a bunch of teens skateboarded over the buckled neighborhood streets.

Californians love their outdoor sports, even when they're in the midst of a natural disaster.

So, when the streets buckled after an earthquake in Napa this summer, a bunch of neighborhood teens picked up their skateboards and jumped the uneven streets.

And, when the roads flooded in Mill Valley on Wednesday, the sixth consecutive day of rain in the Bay Area, one man decided to get where he needed to go on a paddleboard.

The NBC Bay Area chopper flew near the Strawberry Village Shopping Center and over U.S. Highway 101 at the Highway 1 offramp, famous for its gorgeous coastlines and high-tide flooding.

Dressed in a blue windbreaker, cap and shorts, the man can be seen paddling past flooded cars – and the occasional seagull – en route to wherever he was headed.

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