STORY: In footage released by the CHP Coastal Division Air Operations, the victim is captured being hoisted onto a rope dangling from a helicopter, with the help of two rescuers.

CHP Coastal Division Air Operations said in a statement: “The rising river washed a driver and his car away but the driver was able to escape the vehicle and get to an island in the middle of the flooded Salinas River.”

The man, who was shaken but not injured, was carried to a nearby lot and lowered to safety, the CHP said.

Emergency officials in several California counties spent Friday (March 10) patrolling levies and swollen rivers as an "atmospheric river" storm drenched the already-sodden state with torrential rains, causing floods that washed out roads and prompted evacuations.