Rain, wind short of predictions
Benjamin, a forecaster with the National Weather Service. “We’ve had a lot of showers and runoff, a lot of localized flooding. And remember, even after the heaviest rains stop, you’re still going to get seepage from the mountains, and mudslides are a real concern in the higher elevations.
“It’s like bringing water to a boil. It’s still boiling for a while even after you turn off the heat,” Benjamin said. “Hopefully we’re on the good side of things though, for most of the region.”
The atmospheric river that flowed off the Pacific from the southwest on Sunday didn’t quite live up to its billing as “the storm of the quarter century” — most of the flooding it caused, from Yosemite National Park to the Santa Cruz Mountains and North Bay, was more of the nuisance variety.
In Novato, residents of a mobile home park were stranded in the morning as the only road leading in and out was flooded. A bit farther north, multiple roads flooded around the Petaluma River, leaving some motorists standing on the roofs of their partially submerged cars until the water receded and forcing emergency workers to rescue at least one driver, Tim Smith, 69, by raft.
Smith was sleeping in his car under a Highway 101 overpass in Petaluma when he looked outside and saw waters rising around him.
“I said, ‘Uh-oh, I’d better try to get out of there,’ ” Smith said. “I got pretty far. I thought it might get shallower, but I guess not.”
Just north of where Smith’s car was stranded, a business center often referred to as the “Maker District” had become an island by lunchtime as floodwaters turned the roads surrounding it into a moat. Some of the businesses, which include distilleries and an auto repair shop, took on some water, and parked cars were inundated up to the windows before the waters began to recede in the evening.
Jake Johnson, co-owner of 101 North Brewing Co., drove through the moat in his truck to check on things.
“Some people like to be adventurous,” he said. “I was wondering if we should open today, but we didn’t. It could get dangerous.”
In the city of Napa, which historically flooded every time the rains fell hard, a $300 million flood-control project completed three years ago seemed to be proving itself worthy of the money. Nothing was slopping into downtown but typical rain.
“The flooding danger peaked earlier this morning, so now we’re in a wait-and-see monitoring mode, which is really good considering what had happened before,” said city spokeswoman Jaina French. The last time Napa flooded badly was in 2005.
The greatest danger was on the roads — where two people died in apparently weatherrelated crashes — and near trees made vulnerable by saturated soil. A San Ramon woman died Saturday when she was hit by a falling tree while she was out for a walk, and on Sunday, gusts reaching 60 mph blew down trees that at various times blocked BART, Caltrain, Interstate 280 on the Peninsula and Highway 17 in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Late Sunday, mudslides closed the westbound lanes of both Interstate 80 and Highway 50 over the Sierra. Highway 50 reopened shortly after 8 p.m. There was no estimation for when I-80 would reopen. Authorities said clearing the two main routes over the mountains into Northern California was expected to take several hours.
Forecasters had warned that the weekend downpour could be the region’s worst in more than a decade. It wasn’t quite, although many Bay Area cities received more than 2 inches of rain between Saturday and Sunday evenings, and some of the wettest locations — such as Pescadero, on the San Mateo County coast — got up to 7 inches.
“It looked earlier like it might have been heavier than it turned out to be, but I think we reached the apex and the heaviest rainfall has diminished,” forecaster Benjamin said. “Tomorrow we’re not going to be totally dry, but it will be a reprieve from the steady rains, that’s for sure. And by Friday, we might be looking at a dry weekend.”
State emergency officials said they were relieved the damage was as limited as it was, but like Benjamin, they warned that the storm danger was not over — particularly in burn areas left from wildland fires earlier this year in the Santa Cruz Mountains and Santa Lucia Mountains near Big Sur, and on the Russian, Napa and Truckee rivers in the coming days.
The Sonoma County Sheriff ’s Office began voluntary evacuations Sunday night in anticipation of trouble along the Russian River. It was expected to crest at 38.1 feet at noon Monday, which at 6 feet over flood stage would send muddy streams coursing through homes in Guerneville and surrounding towns.
Much farther east, as the worst of the storms rolled over the mountains into Nevada, Reno and Sparks took hard hits, with flooding in downtown areas and evacuations ordered. Schools and the University of Nevada in Reno will be closed Monday, and state and private workers in the flooded areas were advised to stay home.
“Everything is still being monitored, and we’re still going through it,” said Brad Alexander, spokesman for the state Office of Emergency Management, as he stood near shallow floodwaters slopping into St. Helena from the Napa River. “This is certainly no time to let down.”
One expected problem area was the Santa Cruz Mountains, which forecasters had anticipated would be in the middle of the atmospheric river. All day Sunday, curious — and sometimes anxious — onlookers gathered around a bridge over the San Lorenzo River in Felton to watch the raging waters below. The river was rushing high, but it remained below flood stage.
“I’m not pooh-poohing it. It’s sizable,” said Felton resident Eric Rice. “But it hasn’t packed the punch of the last storm.”
Crowds also gathered to ogle the waterway in another floodprone spot — San Anselmo Creek, which in the past has caused destructive flooding in downtown San Anselmo. Not this time: Several businesses were closed and sandbags were piled by their doors, but the creek stayed in its place.
Curtis McCutcheon of Novato was one of several people watching the creek from a bridge just off the avenue. “I’m not sure if it’s turning out as big as they thought,” he said.
Chronicle staff writers Michael Cabanatuan, Jenna Lyons and Michael
Bodley contributed to this report.