Hundreds of trees down, some on houses; more snow forecast; warming sites offered
Utility crews and tree removal workers scrambled Tuesday to help thousands of Pacific Gas and Electric Co. customers in Calaveras and Tuolumne counties, while forecasts showed strong chances for more snow at elevations as low as 1,000 feet by Wednesday morning.
“We’ve had calls for trees down, trees down on houses, trees on the roof, trees through the roof,” Cecilia Burns with Nate’s Tree Service said Tuesday afternoon in a phone interview, as she counted off more than two dozen calls for help in the past 36 hours. “A lot of them are in Twain Harte. We couldn’t get there yesterday. Too many trees and lines down. It was too dangerous. CHP had shut one of the roads in Twain Harte.”
Personnel with the California Highway Patrol based Jamestown were again too swamped with calls to summarize how much chaos low-level snow, iced-up road surfaces, and downed trees have caused in recent days in Tuolumne County.
“Lots of trees down in low elevation neighborhoods like Racetrack,” Sam Balcarcel with Alley Tree & Landscape texted Tuesday afternoon. “Phoenix Lake Estates has lots of trees down and power lines down. Middle Camp is covered in trees and has power lines down. Brentwood Lake subdivisions are bad.”
Snow levels with the next wave of winter storms could dip as low as 500 feet in some west slope foothills locations by Wednesday morning, though Calaveras and Tuolumne counties were likely to see snow levels down to around 1,000foot elevations, Katrina Hand with the National Weather Service said in a phone interview.
Overnight lows in the Sonora area were expected to dip to around 32 degrees or colder by Wednesday morning, with more freez
ing or below-freezing temperatures possible Thursday night through Sunday night.
Tuolumne County planned to open warming shelters, Dore Bietz, coordinator for the county Office of Emergency Services texted Tuesday afternoon.
Before noon Tuesday, there were an estimated 14,200 PG&E customers without power in Calaveras and Tuolumne counties.
“We are bringing in snowcats, bulldozers, buggies and other heavy machinery to help us access the equipment we need to repair,” Megan Mcfarland with PG&E marketing and communications said Tuesday morning. “Once we make contact with that equipment, we'll have a better idea of restoration times.”
Updates from PG&E were not available Tuesday afternoon. The last available information from PG&E showed 9,100 customers without power in Calaveras and 5,100 without power in Tuolumne County. Mcfarland said just before 4 p.m. those numbers had not changed.
PG&E was bringing in helicopters to patrol power lines in the Sonora area, Mcfarland said.
“We are communicating to customers via text, phone calls and email to keep them updated on conditions in their areas and restoration progress,” Mcfarland said. “We absolutely know how frustrating it is to be without power, and we are working around the clock to get the work done.”
As of Tuesday, the Central Sierra region that includes the Stanislaus River and Tuolumne River watersheds, Calaveras Big Trees, Hetch Hetchy and the Stanislaus National Forest had received 19.6 inches of precipitation since Oct. 1, equivalent to 169% of average for the date Dec. 28.
That's more precipitation in the first three months of the current water year, 2021-22, than the Central Sierra received in the entire previous water year. The total for 2020-21 was 18.8 inches, the region's thirddriest water year on record.