Storm brings heavy rain, flooding to Sonoma County

Pg&e has activated its OEC this morning to respond to any outages due to the storm safely and as quickly as possible. That means all hands in deck and more equipment stocked at the yard on Occidental Rd.

Two power outages Crews are looking at two outages right now from last night:

About 221 customers in Jenner were impacted last night around 6pm and the estimated res total time is approximately 5:00 on tonight.

About 241 customers in Occidental are impacted right now, since about 11pm last night. Estimated res total times could change but right now it’s at 3:00 pm.

redcom... usual flodoing, no major incident, rocks on hi 1 harbor way bobay... stadard.. no wind....

sr... cpouple trees down, nothing sign, major... so far so godd...

E ticket ride

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Impressive rainfall totals ranged from one inch or more in central, eastern and southern Sonoma County, many areas had well over two inches and the wettest spots saw more than three inches as of 7 a.m.

While downtown Santa Rosa saw more than one inch, other Santa Rosa locations had more than two inches of rain. Other areas getting more than two inches included Windsor, Healdsburg, Geyserville, Sebastopol and Occidental, according to local weather watchers for the National Weather Service.

Other reports included 3.43 inches in Cazadero, 3.59 inches in Bodega Bay and 3.55 inches in Occidental.

Rain is expected to fall much of Wednesday, getting heavier and windier during the night and continue into Thursday.

“Massive, numerous floods and road closures. Just a bunch of closures due to flooding,” said CHP Sgt. Al Capurro, who was driving on Skillman Lane west of Petaluma and found standing water in his way.

While a slower commute due to the rain, coming down in sheets in some areas including Petaluma, crashes weren’t an issue before 8 a.m.

“We have several locations with cars stuck in the water. None are occupied right now,” Capurro said.

Slides were a major issue on the north coast, with as many as five reported on Highway 1 between Jenner north to Muniz Ranch Road, said Monte Rio Fire Chief Steve Baxman.

“Chasing rock slides and mud slides,” Baxman said of the busy morning. “There’s a lot of water in the road too, everywhere water.”

A lack of wind was helping, perhaps, keep trees from falling and further issues, he said.

At Fort Ross Road the rocks and mud covered both lanes. Fire officials were asking that the coast highway be closed from Fort Ross to Jenner due to the mudslides. CHP already had closed Highway 1 at Bay Hill Road and just south of Tomales due to standing water.

Before 7 a.m. one driver in a Toyota Prius tried to get through water on Eastside Road at Riverfront Regional Park and couldn’t make it, so got out, locked the car and walked. Fire crews called to deal with the vehicle found it almost floating from the high water and discovered a second car also stuck in nearby standing water.

Sonoma County’s closure list of county roads early Wednesday detailed nine locations due to flooding, including two spots on Valley Ford Road. Others were stretches of Todd Road, Skillman Lane, Eastside Road, Rohnert Park Expressway, Skylane Boulevard and Old Redwood Highway.