Governor Schwarzenegger tours  a flooded area in California.(file photo)

    BEIJING, Jan.4 (Xinhuanet) -- A string of drenching storms that swept California over the past weekend caused more than $200 million in damage, prompting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to think about plans for a massive state infrastructure bond with funding for the state's aging levee system, which gurads some of California's richest farm lands from floods.

    "It will be a considerable amount of money," Schwarzenegger said as he toured a levee near Sacramento.

    The governor is expected to unveil his ideas for an infrastructure bond in his state of the state speech on Thursday. He has thrown out the possibility of the state issuing up to $50 billion in debt to finance upgrading highways, parts, levees and other infrastructure.

    The series of flooded towns along the North Coast and in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, where aging levees have become a top concern of state water officials.

    Officials noted more than 40 episodes of erosion or seepage in the levees, but the flood-control system performed well overall, said Gary Bardini, chief of hydrology with the state Department of Water Resources.

    "What we're living on is a system that has been built over 100 years," Bardini said. "It certainly is not up to the current practices that we would do in levee design, so we're doing our best with resources available to make the necessary improvements."

    Crews continued to watch several levees closely - including one near Twitchell Island, where several dozen residents were evacuated.

    Storms are blamed for two deaths, one in Siskiyou County where a teenager fell into a creek and one in Lake County where a man drowned, said Dale Chessey, a spokesman with the state Office of Emergency Services.

    They brought ferocious winds and pelting rain to Northern California, as well as high tides in the delta east of San Francisco Bay. In Southern California, rain marred the Rose Parade for the first time in 51 years.

    The delta's tides were receding Tuesday, but rivers flowing from mountain ranges throughout Northern California continued to be inundated with runoff, said Jay Punia, chief of flood operations at the state Department of Water Resources.

    Schwarzenegger has declared states of emergency in 23 Northern California counties, including 16 on Tuesday. Napa and Sonoma counties were among the hardest hit.

   (Agencies)