Another 1.43 inches of rain soaked the South Valley area over
the weekend, causing mud to slide and trees to fall along the
private roads and fire-weakened hillsides of Uvas Canyon.
GILROY – Another 1.43 inches of rain soaked the South Valley area over the weekend, causing mud to slide and trees to fall along the private roads and fire-weakened hillsides of Uvas Canyon.
“The roads held up pretty good. We had a few trees down and minor mudslides scattered around Uvas and Croy (roads), but everything is cleaned up now,” said Terri Amcelwaine, a Santa Clara County road maintenance dispatcher.
Most of the downpour came Friday afternoon and tapered off as the weekend progressed, bringing rainfall totals for the Gilroy area to nearly 9.5 inches since July 1 and 6 inches for all of December.
Forecasters said remnants from another approaching storm were due to bring one-tenth of an inch of rain to the valleys by about noon today, with chances of rain increasing through Christmas and into the latter days of the week.
“As the week goes along, weather conditions (inland) that act as a wall will break down and lead to heavier rain later in the week,” said National Weather Service Meteorologist Rick Canepa.
The approaching storm is elongated, stretching from California to British Columbia and making it more difficult to retain its strength as it approaches the coastline and meets up with other weather patterns.
“This doesn’t mean the door to wet weather is closing. It just means this storm will be a lot weaker than what we’ve been seeing,” Canepa said. “We still have El Ni’o conditions, and we still have to get through January, February and March.”
John Ferreira, operations chief for the California Department of Forestry at Morgan Hill, said his station had not been informed of any homes sliding or roads being taken out in the Uvas Canyon area that endured a 3,127-acre wildfire in the fall. Nonetheless, the area remains unstable since much of the vegetation was consumed by the fire or removed by crews that created fire breaks during the blaze.
“It’s just very muddy up there,” Ferreira said.
On Monday morning, former Croy Road resident Sue Guist was waiting to hear from husband Roy, who was evaluating conditions of the area where their home burned down in the September blaze. In recent days, the Guists have been filling weakened parts of their private road with rocks in order to control erosion and divert the flow of water away from the roadway.
“Our first responsibility is to the earth and then to the county to keep our hill from sliding into drinking water supplies,” Guist said. “We’re just trying to be good stewards of the area we loved and lived in for so many years.”
Like more than 30 area residents, the Guists lost their Croy Road home in the Uvas Canyon blaze last fall.
“It was our Camelot, and now it’s gone,” Guist said.
Like many other residents of the blaze-burdened area, the Guists have been using seeds distributed by the Santa Clara Valley Water District to replant the hillside and protect the many private roads that jet out from county roads such as Croy.
