HOLLISTER
A powerful weekend storm left Hollister residents wet but relatively unscathed.
Unlike those in surrounding communities, all of Hollister’s roads remained open, said City Manager Clint Quilter. And Jeff Smith, a spokesman for Pacific Gas and Electric, said far fewer PG&E customers in Hollister lost power than in nearby Santa Cruz and Monterey counties.
“Hollister was fairly fortunate,” Smith said.
According to the National Weather Service, Hollister received 1.64 inches of rain between 4 p.m. Thursday and 4 p.m. Sunday – a wet weekend, but much drier than in San Jose, with 2.61 inches, or Santa Cruz, with 4.71 inches.
Brian Tentinger, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Monterey, said there isn’t any specific reason why Hollister would be sheltered from the storm.
“It’s just the way the weather plays out sometimes,” Tentinger said.
Throughout the Central Coast region, which includes San Benito County, up to 89,000 homes lost power at any one time, Smith said. But in Hollister, around 150 homes lost power overall, and no more than 100 homes were without power at any one time, he said.
Asked why most Hollister homes maintained their power, Smith said the “overwhelming” reason for power outages during storms is uprooted trees getting tangled in the power lines.
“The majority of Hollister is not heavily surrounded by trees,” Smith said.
He added that the 2.1 million PG&E outages between Bakersfield and the Oregon border were “the most I’ve ever seen.”
Although the storm wasn’t particularly harmful in Hollister, Quilter said public works crews kept busy throughout the weekend by cleaning out storm drains, clearing fallen trees off the road and more.
“They had to do a ton of stuff,” he said.
Quilter said he hoped all that work meant Hollister residents weren’t inconvenienced.
There are also some locals who welcome the rain. San Benito County Farm Bureau President George Bonacich, an apricot grower, noted that farmers have been worried about a dry winter.
“This will help the pastures an awful lot,” Bonacich said. “They’re already turning green. It was great for all the cattle people.”
But local rainfall doesn’t replenish the imported water supply on which many growers rely, he added.
“We just hope it keeps snowing in the Sierras,” Bonacich said.
