RECOVERY BEGINS AS STORM MOVES THROUGH
About 16,000 are still without power in county
SANTA CRUZ >> With powerful wind gusts reaching speeds up to 80 mph in the mountains Tuesday, and soil saturated from weeks of seemingly perpetual rainfall, trees fell all over Santa Cruz County — on powerlines, vehicles, houses and highways leading to a flurry of car accidents, road closures and power outages.
According to PG&E communications representative Benjamin Spillman, as of Wednesday afternoon there were about 16,000 customers without power in Santa Cruz County, across 152 outages, with about 14,015 customers power having been restored since Tuesday when there were nearly 30,000 outages in the county.
Spillman said that there are approximately 277 crews working to restore power system-wide, with 52 crews in the South Bay and Central Coast. In the mountainous areas of Santa Cruz County, crews are contending with trees across roadways that need to be cleared for access, he said.
“PG&E crews are encountering major damage in Santa Cruz County related to this storm, which is not only resulting in fallen trees impacting our equipment, but also blocking roads and creating access issues,” said PG&E spokesperson Mayra Tostado. “While we try to respond to every outage as quickly as possible to assess the damage, blocked roads or flooding may hinder our restoration efforts.”
The Santa Cruz Mountains were hit the hardest by the storm and at press time Wednesday, portions of Highway 9 remained closed from Scenic Drive to Woodland Drive in Ben Lomond, and from Bear Creek Road in Boulder Creek to the junction of Highway 236 near Watermans Gap, both due to downed trees. The highway is also closed at lower Glen Arbor Road to about 8 miles north of Santa Cruz at Arboleda Way due to slides, according to Caltrans.
National Weather Service meteorologist Rick Canepa pointed out that wind speeds greater than 58 mph are officially considered damaging by the weather service,
and that the more powerful gusts in the Santa Cruz Mountains surpassed that threshold Tuesday.
“A stream of wind developed over the outer Monterey Bay yesterday morning and afternoon and made a straight line toward the Santa Cruz Mountains,” said Canepa. “The highest gusts across the Santa Cruz Mountains were upwards of 75 to 85 mph.”
Rain totals varied widely across the county with the lower end amounts at about 1 inch to 1 and one-third inches around Aptos, Capitola, Santa Cruz and toward Watsonville, according to Canepa.
In the Santa Cruz Mountains, the totals increased easily greater than 2 inches with many areas that had 3 inches of rainfall or more. Areas around Ben Lomond and Boulder Creek received nearly 5 inches of rain. Along the Santa Cruz and Santa Clara County border there was about 4 inches of rain.
According to Sentinel weather observers, La Selva Beach recorded 2.02 inches in the last 24 hours and totaled 46.41 inches since Oct. 1, the start of the rain season. Other observed rainfall totals in the county included 1.58 inches in Happy Valley and 1.45 inches in Soquel.
“No doubt it was a very strong system,” said Canepa. “It rapidly spun up off the coast and we were seeing two to three millibar per hour pressure falls that developed the night before and into Tuesday morning as it approached the coastline. Then, once the pressures start falling at such magnitude, the wind responds directly to that pressure gradient change.”
In the coming days, Canepa said that Santa Cruz County residents can expect chillier temperatures, but a reprieve from the wet weather at least until Sunday night.
“A mainly dry cold front sweeps through from the northwest late Thursday afternoon into the evening that sets us up for at least two to three days of unseasonably cold weather with temperature departures upwards of 10 degrees below normal, especially at night,” said Canepa. “We got some really chilly weather coming up for the late week and weekend with temperatures near freezing in the Santa Cruz Mountains and probably near 40 right next to the ocean.”
Canepa said there are strong indications that rain and wind could return early next week, but the exact timing of when the lowpressure system arrives is still up in the air.
“There are differences in the forecast models as to when it will arrive,” said Canepa. “It could be as early as late Sunday night or early Monday morning, or maybe not until Tuesday.”
Caltrans reported that it will perform daytime lane closures on Highway 17 starting Monday, between Blossom Hill Road to Summit Road, in Santa Clara County to remove fallen and leaning trees impacted by recent inclement weather. The cleanup is scheduled to be completed by April 7. Caltrans points out that all work is weather dependent, and that motorists should expect delays during the cleanup process and factor that into their commute time.
To report or check on outages, visit pgealerts. alerts.pge.com.
For information about road closures, visit roads. dot.ca.gov and tinyurl.com/ SCCOCA.