Atmospheric river storm brings headaches, traffic jams and wet weather, but Bay Area escapes severe damage
An atmospheric river storm brought high winds, steady rain and some flooding to roads and low-lying neighborhoods Friday, but the Bay Area largely avoided the kind of severe damage that the region saw during the last wave of heavy storms in January.
“I don’t think it was quite as prolonged as was expected,” said Jan Null, a meteorologist with Golden Gate Weather Services in Half Moon Bay. “The storm moved through the Bay Area quickly, and in kind of an orderly manner.”
There’s no question it was a headache for motorists caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
A broken water pump turned parts of Interstate 580 between 35th Avenue and High Street in Oakland into a bathtub during the Friday morning commute, stalling cars until all lanes were cleared by 11:30 a.m.
To the south, surging waters from Uvas Creek flooded Highway 101 south of Gilroy between about 10 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., sending motorists onto side streets in a confused tangle of traffic.
Flood waters tore out a large section of North Main Street in Soquel Village in Santa Cruz County, scrambling county road workers to repair it with a steel plate and rocks. The goal was to have the roughly 1,000 residents in the Soquel Hills able to cross it by Saturday.
Rain totals were generally at or below the amounts forecasted by the National Weather Service.
By 3 p.m. Friday, with the rain mostly over, San Jose, San Francisco and most towns in the Peninsula had received about 1 inch of rain over the previous 24 hours. Oakland, Walnut Creek and much of the East Bay saw about 2 inches. The Santa Cruz Mountains absorbed 4 to 6 inches and Big Sur, where Caltrans has closed Highway 1 due to rockslides, saw 10 inches at the highest elevations.
“It was a typical winter storm in the Bay Area,” Null said. “Next year when we are talking about the storms of this winter, we won’t be talking about this one. We’ll be talking about the January storms.”
In Southern California, the storms caused serious flooding in parts of Kernville, a town 50 miles north of Bakersfield, where the rain melted snow that had accumulated in recent weeks at lower elevations.
Forecasters said that more snow is expected in the Sierra in large amounts this weekend, with another 3 or 4 feet possible at Donner Summit and 6 feet or more expected at Tioga Pass in Yosemite National Park, which has been closed all week.
High winds and avalanche concerns prompted several ski resorts in the Lake Tahoe area to close Friday, including Palisades Tahoe, Kirkwood and Sugar Bowl. At Palisades Tahoe, a 139 mph gust was recorded atop one of the ridgelines shortly before dawn.
“This most recent storm is a real wallop of an atmospheric river,” said Maggie Eshbaugh, a Sugar Bowl spokeswoman. “When we get transitional weather like this, like wet storms, it can really affect lift operations. We’re planning to reassess and try to re-open tomorrow.”
No major rivers in the Bay Area suffered significant flooding. Emergency officials in Santa Cruz County had issued evacuation warnings for Felton Grove, Paradise Park and other areas along the San Lorenzo River that that flood often in big storms.
At Felton Grove, which flooded badly in January, the river crested Friday morning at 20 feet — nearly 4 feet above its flood level, but 3 feet less than had been predicted. It was enough to fill a few streets with brown, knee-high deep water that quickly receded.
“It looks like the rest of the neighborhood fared pretty good this time,” said Jason Dietz, 48, who hosed muddy water out of the concrete garage below the living quarters of his Felton home Friday morning.
His neighbor, Virginia Wright, was relieved as she and her dog, Sobaka, went for a walk on the muddy streets near the Covered Bridge in Felton.
“I was up all night watching the river gauge,” Wright, 63, said. “I just am amazed that we didn’t get a big flood like last time. We didn’t get water in the garage. I’m just really really, really grateful that we didn’t have all the mud. The mud is sticky and stinky and not very fun to deal with.”
But Watsonville wasn’t spared. Flood waters on Friday morning poured through several neighborhoods close to Corralitos Creek, which spills into the Pajaro River. An 18-year old woman who drove through flood waters had to be rescued when her truck was submerged in Casserly Creek.
It was the third time since the New Year’s Eve storm that Ruben Renteria, 30, will have to rip out and replace linoleum flooring in his rental properties on East Lake Avenue, across from a raspberry farm.
“We fix and fix and fix,” Renteria said. “It’s terrible.”
In the latest sign that California’s 3-year drought was ending in much of the state, dam operators on Friday released water down the massive spillway at Oroville Dam in Butte County for the first time in four years. Oroville, the state’s second-largest reservoir, is 75% full and state officials said they want to create space to store incoming stormwater and snow melt to reduce the risk of flooding downstream.
Anticipating damage from the latest storm, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday asked for a Presidential Emergency Declaration. President Biden granted it for 34 counties on Friday, easing the way for federal assistance.
The affected counties were Amador, Butte, El Dorado, Fresno, Humboldt, Imperial, Inyo, Kern, Lake, Los Angeles, Madera, Mariposa, Mendocino, Merced, Mono, Monterey, Napa, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Sacramento, San Bernardino, San Francisco, San Mateo, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Sierra, Sonoma, Stanislaus, Tulare, Tuolumne and Yuba.
Statewide, California Office of Emergency Services Director Nancy Ward said the state opened shelters in nine counties, and 9,400 people were under evacuation orders, and 55,000 lost power. Two people statewide have died in the past week or so in storms, officials said, one in Placer County and one in San Bernardino County.
In Oakland, a man was killed and a woman injured at 3:20 am Friday morning when a 30-foot section of roof collapsed at at Peet’s Coffee and Tea warehouse where they were working in the 600 block of 85th Avenue.
Oakland Fire Battalion Chief Chris Foley said the incident is under investigation and it is too early to say if the collapse was weather related.
Peet’s spokeswoman Mary O’Connell said colleagues were “absolutely shaken” by the man’s death. “He was always upbeat and had a great sense of humor,” O’Connell said. “He had a joke for everyone and everyone warmed to him.”
Forecasters said light rain is expected over the weekend with chances of a stronger storm on Monday night or Tuesday.