Issue date: September 15, 1999

Rare storm puts on quite a show, leaves local residents powerless Rare storm puts on quite a show, leaves local residents powerless (September 15, 1999)

By MARJORIE MADER
People are still talking about the freak storm that last week thundered through the Peninsula put on a spectacular lightning display for hours and, at its peak, left about 50,000 customers without electricity.
Pacific Gas & Electric Co. crews worked around the clock to restore power to its customers after lightning struck power transformers and knocked down poles and lines. Although the length and ferocity of the storm stunned residents, there were only minor reports of damage.
The storm moved in from the coast shortly after 4 p.m. on Wednesday, September 8, and continued with lightning strikes until almost 5 a.m. the next day. Calls reporting power outages started coming in to PG&E around 4:30 p.m.
Fewer than 400 customers were still without power last Friday morning, said PG&E spokesman Ron Low, who expected all service would be restored by the weekend. The storm caused "extensive damage to the infrastructure," he said, "but our top priority was to restore power to customers." He said 15 PG&E transformers on the Peninsula were struck by lightning that also knocked down power poles and lines.
Fire Chief Mike Fuge of the Woodside Fire Protection District watched the lightning show as he was driving home from a Portola Valley Town Council meeting around 10 p.m. Wednesday, and to get a better view, he drove to the Canada College parking lot. He was surprised to find about 350 people had congregated there, many with cameras, to watch and record the spectacular aerial display, he said.
When the coastal fog retreated from Skyline late Thursday morning, Chief Fuge received a report that smoke was rising in Bear Gulch Canyon near Skyline Boulevard. A resident, who had photographed lightning strikes in the area the night before, spotted the smoke rising from a full-grown fir tree, towering 75 feet tall. Its tip had been struck by lightning the previous evening.
Firefighters, carrying hand tools and backpacks of water, had to walk 1.5 miles down the steep canyon to reach the fire. Three large trees were engulfed in flames. Firefighters cut a fire line around the three trees and worked to contain the blaze.
About 30 firefighters from the Woodside, Menlo Park and Redwood City fire departments and the California Division of Forestry responded, limiting the fire to burning a half acre. Woodside firefighters Dan Ghiroso and Emil Picchi spent the night at the fire site to be sure there wasn't any flare-up.
"We were lucky there was enough rain to keep the fire from spreading" during the night and early morning hours," said Chief Fuge. He said there were 16 fires in San Mateo County, mostly in remote spots, attributed to lightning strikes during the storm.
Close to home

Lightning struck too close to home for Gloria Morris of Portola Valley. About 2 a.m. Thursday, Ms. Morris felt something like an explosion that awakened her. "It hit so hard I flew out of bed. It scared the living daylights out of me," she said. She looked around, checked for any damage or smoke, but didn't find anything.

When her brother and neighbor, Ben Sanguinetti, came by at 6 a.m., he said, "Gloria have you seen your deodora cedar?" Lightning had struck the top of the 75-foot cedar in her yard and traveled down the trunk, which then exploded. Everything -- branches, boughs and cones -- had blown off, they said. One limb landed on the roof of the pump house. Another had struck the mailbox support, lifting the mailboxes in the air at a precarious angle.

"I really was emotional about that tree," said Ms. Morris, because her mother had planted the tree in 1934, when Mrs. Sanguinetti bought the property on Brookside Drive for the family summer home. It was one of the first trees to be planted in the barren area, added Ben Sanguinetti.

Ms. Morris called David Moore of McClenahan Tree Service to check out the tree and assess the damage. He estimated the height as 75 feet and the circumference as 38 inches.

"That's one hell of a lightning strike," said Lewis Clark, as he surveyed the splintered cedar later in the afternoon. He is known locally as the "Bear Carver" for creating bears of all sizes and postures from downed trees.

"Cedar is real nice to carve," he told Ms. Morris. She is thinking about having a bench made from the cedar for her yard as a remembrance of the tree her mother planted 65 years ago.