Death toll rises to 5 after wild California storm brings heavy rain, damaging winds
LOS ANGELES — Heavy rain and damaging winds will gradually subside Wednesday as one of the wildest storms of the season makes its exit from the Golden State, leaving at least five people dead and others critically injured as it felled trees and knocked out power to hundreds of thousands.
One person was killed and another injured Tuesday when a large tree fell onto their car in Walnut Creek, according to the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District. Another individual was killed when a tree fell onto a vehicle on Alpine Road in the San Mateo County community of Portola Valley, the California Highway Patrol said.
In Oakland, a man was pronounced dead Tuesday night after a tree fell on the tent he was inside near Lake Merritt. An exact cause of death has not yet been determined, but officials presume he died of either blunt force or suffocation.
Two people also died after being brought to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital on Tuesday for treatment of injuries suffered in separate storm-related incidents, according to city officials.
“Tragically, two people lost their lives, which is a grave reminder of how serious and dangerous this storm became,” Mayor London Breed said in a statement.
Though stormy conditions were dissipating Wednesday in the San Francisco Bay Area from the remarkable “bomb cyclone,” the Central Valley was bracing for more rain and potential flooding as the system tracked in its direction. A flood watch is in effect for a large swath of the region, spanning from Merced to Bakersfield and San Luis Obispo.
Thousands of people remain under evacuation orders in Tulare County, where officials continue to monitor high levels on the Tule River and release water from Lake Success. Nearly 24,000 structures in the area are threatened, said Daniel Potter, spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, which is assisting with emergency response in the area.
At least 760 homes and structures have been damaged, including seven that have been destroyed, said Carrie Monteiro, spokeswoman for Tulare County’s Emergency Operations Center. Assessments are ongoing.
There is no estimated time frame for when evacuated residents will be able to return to their homes, and utility companies will also need to assess potential damage to water, sewer, electric systems and other infrastructure in the area, she added.
“We’re in for a long haul here in Tulare County,” she said.
The storm brought hurricane-force winds Tuesday as it developed two “eyes,” or areas of low pressure, that swirled around each other in what is known as the Fujiwhara effect, meteorologists said.
“Wow. Even by the standards of what has turned out to be one of our most extraordinary winter seasons in a very long time, yesterday stands out,” the National Weather Service said Wednesday.
The strength of the storm, which brought wind gusts of up to 70 mph on the Monterey County coast and 80 mph in the mountains, caught even some meteorologists by surprise.
“From a large-scale picture, there was just a lot of potential energy to be converted over to energy and motion — or kinetic energy — and it just equated to a lot of wind and a fair amount of rain,” said Rick Canepa, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in the Bay Area. “It just fully spun up and strengthened over our forecast area.”