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The Midpeninsula is still feeling the effects of the atmospheric river that swept through the Bay Area over the weekend, with downed trees, power outages and flooding.
From Sunday at midnight to Monday morning, the city of Menlo Park was busy responding to storm-related calls. During that time, city staff responded to 40 calls regarding downed trees, 22 related to flooding, three related to signals being out, three related to power being out, eight regarding fire risks from downed wires or transformers, and seven related to other hazards such as debris in roadways or clogged storm drains, according to Nicole Acker, police department spokesperson. The public works department responded to most of those calls, she said.
The Riekes Center, a nonprofit that offers fitness, music and creativity-related enrichment in North Fair Oaks, experienced a power outage and flooding in its parking lot. The facility was expected to be closed today (Oct. 25) for cleanup, according to Romy Colombatto, spokesperson at the Riekes Center.
Rainfall during the storm was impressive. The 48-hour rainfall total as of Monday morning was 4.75 inches recorded in Woodside, 4.19 inches in Los Altos, 3.77 inches in Redwood City and 3.21 inches at Stanford, according to the National Weather Service. A full list of Bay Area rainfall reports can be found here.
The number of Bay Area residents still without power had dropped significantly by Monday morning, but 68,320 customers were still in the dark due to storm-related outages, PG&E said.
By 6 a.m., 25,916 customers were affected on the Peninsula, another 20,753 in the North Bay, 11,107 in the South Bay, 8,489 in the East Bay and 2,055 in San Francisco, PG&E spokesman J.D. Guidi said.
Some 2,331 households in Woodside were still without power at around 11 a.m. on Monday, according to a PG&E spokesperson. PG&E had also yet to restore power for 1,246 households in Portola Valley Monday morning.
Late Sunday, as the storm was was barreling through the Bay Area, outages around the region topped 147,000. On Sunday, the Peninsula was hit hardest by the outages, with 46,529 customers down at 4:30 p.m., followed by Marin County, with 41,938 down. There were also significant outages in the South Bay (28,948), East Bay (21,685), and San Francisco (8,644).
There were reports of trees and wires down in Woodside and Portola Valley, said Lt. Eamonn Allen, San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office public information officer, in an email. There was only minimal damage when a tree branch landed on Woodside Town Hall during the storm, he noted.
Filoli closed Sunday and Monday because of a power outage, according to the Woodside estate’s Instagram account. Cal Fire CZU shared a video on Twitter of firefighters containing a pole fire on Cañada Road near Filoli on Sunday.
Roberts Market, which has locations in Woodside and Portola Valley, lost power at both stores for portions of Sunday, according to President Christine Roberts. She said the Woodside store doesn’t lose power very often.
The stores’ backup generators only keep the registers running, along with some lighting, so some food likely spoiled, she noted. She said the deli usually gets hit hardest by an outage since meat typically doesn’t keep as well in the coolers for an extended period of time. The store will have to “eat its deductible” on insurance to cover the cost of food that went bad, she said.
PG&E restored power to the Woodside store on Monday morning. The Portola Valley store, which had power restored Sunday night, was again without power Monday morning, she said.
The storm prompted the Cal Fire San Mateo-Santa Cruz unit to issue an evacuation order Sunday morning for people living in the CZU Fire burn scar areas of Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties out of concern for the potential for debris flows and flash flooding in those areas. The evacuation order was lifted Monday morning.
While the flood advisory was canceled late Sunday night for the Bay Area, the National Weather Service issued a reminder that its high surf warning is still in effect through 11 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 26.
The storm will continue to generate large swells, along with breaking waves reaching 20 to 30 feet at west/northwest facing beaches. The warning urges people to stay off coastal jetties and never turn their backs to the ocean in such conditions, which include the increased risk of sneaker waves, large breaking waves, rip currents and increased coastal run up.
