San Francisco assesses rain-storm damage, North Bay spared major outages

SAN FRANCISCO – San Francisco is drying out and making ready for the following spherical of storms. Thursday’s storm blew in throughout the early morning hours, dumping rain all through the town.

The storm introduced down a big ficus tree on Mission Avenue close to South Van Ness.

“The excellent news is there have been no accidents, no property harm, apart from a big mild pole got here down and the Muni traces got here down as effectively,” stated Rachel Gordon from San Francisco’s Division of Public Works. “So, the affect is that Muni, the Mission Avenue buses needed to be re-routed for that.”

Public works crews scrambled to chop the tree and clear the lanes. Extra crews are on standby in case there may be extra harm from the storm. 

The town says city foresters will come out to look at different timber within the space to see if in addition they could also be liable to collapse. “We all know that ficus timber are extra susceptible to failure,” Gordon stated. “We noticed that at this time. We expect that with this one, it wasn’t wind that introduced it down, but it surely was the saturation of the bottom after which the heavy cover on it.”

The storm made navigating by the town difficult. 

Commuters needed to cope with standing water on the Central Freeway. The rainwater additionally turned lots of the floor streets into rivers. Metropolis staff scrambled from one intersection to the following, working to clear clogged catch basins. 

“It began out gradual, however as soon as folks began waking up, the calls got here in for clogged catch basins flooding and stuff,” stated Paul Quibell from San Francisco’s Public Utilities Fee. “So, that is what we’re doing now.

“Employees stated they’d encounter one flooded intersection even whereas making an attempt to get to a different. “We had been headed to Jones and Sutter, and we discovered 4 simply alongside our approach getting there and that is the primary one we have really had to make use of the truck to wash out,” stated Quibell. “The others we might simply rake the particles off the catch basin.”

Across the metropolis, folks navigated within the rain, stepping over puddles and hustling to get to their locations. Drought acutely aware folks stated the rain is a welcome sight, even when it makes exercising somewhat chilly. “Adore it when it occurs, hate it when it is gone,” stated Jeff Darling. 

“Hate it when it occurs, like it when it is gone.”

Whereas San Francisco is drying out, preparations are already underway for the following spherical of storms set to hit the Bay Space in only a matter of days. The town is asking folks to clear these catch basins in the event that they see any particles that would gradual the drainage of water from the following storm.

MORE: December storm comes with freeze warning, potential floods & energy outages

In the meantime, in Marin County the reasonably extreme storm ended with surprisingly good outcomes. Luckily, Pacific Gasoline and Electrical clients had few issues within the North Bay.

“PG&E meteorologists have been monitoring the storm for days and we anticipated it to be fairly robust. Because it approached, the impacts had been a lot much less important that we anticipated and it was downgraded from a class three in some areas to a class two,” stated PG&E Public Data Officer Megan McFarland.

The utility’s electrical system, susceptible to falling branches and winds, had only a few outages; the overwhelming majority of them affecting lower than 50 clients every. 

“Usually occasions once we do see a storm coming in and we all know there’s gonna be excessive winds, we’ll step up our tree trimming much more within the days of the storm approaching so that may assist minimize down on the outages,” stated McPartland. Energy line inspections and upkeep have hardened the system.

Water is one other matter. Stung by flooding final 12 months, San Rafael’s Fourth Avenue retailers sand bagged up. “Final 12 months we had it flooded proper right here. We needed to put sandbags out as a result of one of many drains over right here will need to have been clogged. However, yeah, it might get ugly,” stated Wrap N Kabob Restaurant Proprietor Chris Kimiyaie.

One of many advantages of the rain: extra water in storage for a county that is had good climate luck final 12 months and this 12 months. This may be greatest seen at Marin’s Phoenix Reservoir.

Now if this reservoir had been to go up simply one other two to 3 toes, one thing that would simply occur in an enormous storm, then it will overflow and exit the spillway. There’s would go down stream, some to be caught, however the majority of it going out into the bay.   

Nonetheless one Marin resident stated the one actual answer for the Bay Space is desalination. “I learn an article some time again that stated that every family must choose up one other 4 bucks a month which I might haven’t any drawback with and, lots of people I’ve talked to stated they would not both,” stated Marin resident Al Euphrat.

The storm approaching this weekend doesn’t seem to PG&E a minimum of, to be a lot of a risk.