Strong winds and heavy rains left more than 3,000 utility
customers without power this morning as a weekend storm pelted
portions of San Benito County with more than two inches of
rain.
City and county public works crews spent several hours this
morning removing downed trees from roadways and clearing blocked
culverts to prevent flooding.
Strong winds and heavy rains left more than 3,000 utility customers without power this morning as a weekend storm pelted portions of San Benito County with more than two inches of rain.
City and county public works crews spent several hours this morning removing downed trees from roadways and clearing blocked culverts to prevent flooding.
“Since about 2 a.m. we’ve had a number of trees down and been working on some minor rock slides on Panoche Road,” Assistant County Public Works Director Peter Corn said this morning.
More than two inches of rain fell on Hollister over the weekend. Pinnacles National Monument received 2.51 inches – 1.49 inches on Sunday and Monday morning alone – and Morgan Hill and Gilroy each had more than two inches of rain, according to the National Weather Service.
An exact rainfall total for Hollister was not available this morning because the weekend rain overflowed the gauge at the city’s Public Works Department.
The same winds that rattled windows, uprooted trees and tore branches loose were also responsible for a series of six power outages overnight, Pacific Gas and Electric Company spokesman Jeff Smith said.
“It started at around 2 or 3 a.m. and is due to the storms that hit us over the weekend,” Smith said.
He said that almost as soon as PG&E work crews repaired one damaged line, another would go down, keeping crews busy throughout the night to get power restored to most residents.
By 7:30 a.m. today there were still 1,681 utility customers in the county without power, including businesses, homes and other facilities.
“We should have most folks back up over the next few days,” Smith said.
He said complete restoration of power throughout the county will depend on how reasonable the weather is during the next few days.
But Bob Benjamin, a spokesman for the National Weather Service office in Monterey, said the region won’t get much of a break from the rain until after Christmas.
“The overall weather pattern through the first of the year will be a wet one,” Benjamin said. “We’re looking at an unsettled weather pattern with surges of stronger rain and intermittent showers.”
He said the county can expect showers today, Tuesday and Wednesday before another storm moves into the area Thursday.
“We’ll have another heavy system come in over the area on Thursday,” Benjamin said.
The storm is the first in a series headed for Northern California from the Gulf of Alaska, the NWS said.
San Benito County was not the only place hit hard by the storm. At least 140,000 customers were without power in the San Francisco Bay area this morning and 10,000 customers in Sacramento began the week in the dark. Some Bay Area schools were closed today as were some in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Yountville and Los Gatos got more than six inches of rain late Sunday and this morning. In some parts of the Napa Valley vineyard region, rain fell at the rate of 3/4-inch per hour.
Wind gusts reached 100 mph at the summit of Mt. Diablo in Contra Costa County and were strong enough to knock panels off a building at Sixth and Market streets in San Francisco.
The storm also affected traffic in the Bay Area. U.S. 101 was closed in both directions this morning at the Marin-Sonoma county line and multiple injuries were reported in a 10-car pileup on Interstate 280 in Santa Clara during the morning commute.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
