What happens when a bomb cyclone collides with an atmospheric river off the Pacific coast? For four long, wet days in Healdsburg last week historic rainfall totals and quickly rising Russian River and Foss Creek waters that hopped their banks, flooded streets, caused road closures, led to a small mudslide on Fitch Mountain and flooded at least one home in town.
“It almost felt like a tide was coming in,” said Mercedes Clark, a 27-year-old renter whose Healdsburg home quickly filled with Foss Creek waters. “The way it came was so fast.”
The storm arrived in the wee hours Wednesday. By Saturday, Healdsburg and its rural outskirts had received 16 to 22 inches of rain, according to our local office of the National Weather Service (NWS)—much more than originally predicted.
The deluge shattered multiple daily rainfall records at the Sonoma County Airport south of town, the office reported, and delivered more than half of the area’s average yearly rainfall in a matter of days.
After the first 24 hours of relentless rain and wind, Healdsburg’s lowest-lying streets and pathways began to flood. Particularly impacted were those in proximity to Foss Creek—which overflowed Thursday and quickly inundated the surrounding area.
“We literally had so many ducks in our backyard,” said Clark, whose home flooded. “It turned into a full-blown pond. It was wild.”
Road Closures
Throughout the day, city officials closed Grove Street from Foss Creek Circle to North Street; North from Grove to the freeway; Larkspur Drive from Grant Street to Marigold Way; Allan Court and Moore Lane behind City Hall; and parts of Parkland Farms. Residents who needed to get through could be seen wading through the blockaded streets, water up to their calves.
Clark and her partner—who live one block south of Powell Avenue, between Healdsburg Avenue and Foss Creek—said the entire ground floor of their two-story home filled with around three feet of water in a matter of hours Thursday. It happened so quickly that they didn’t have time to save all their furniture and appliances from the rising waters—along with Clark’s family photos and the journals her mother kept while dying from cancer.
Clark said that nothing like this has happened in the four years she’s lived there, and that her landlord never mentioned the property was flood-prone. Amid the chaos Thursday, she managed to save her car from the driveway, where waters were also rising. “But when it comes to all of my photos,” Clark said, “there’s no getting any of that back.”
Come early Friday morning, across town, a soggy chunk of Fitch Mountain broke loose and slid down into the road, threatening a home and trapping a parked car along Madrone Avenue, according to the county’s Permit Sonoma. A spokesperson for the agency said crews were monitoring the mudslide closely to make sure it didn’t reach any homes downhill.
Rising Waters
Meanwhile, at the base of the mountain, the Russian River rose rapidly throughout the storm. By Friday afternoon, it had surged past flood level at Digger’s Bend, one of two spots where officials measure it in Healdsburg—peaking around 3pm at just over 30 feet.
And at the other measuring spot downstream near Badger Park, the 3pm peak was 20 feet, just shy of the official danger zone. Healdsburg resident Tessa Kraft posted photos to Facebook that afternoon showing the river swallow a bench at Riverside Park within a couple of hours.
“The benches disappeared!” she wrote. “The Russian River is rising fast!”
Also on Friday, at least two drivers had to be rescued from their waterlogged cars on Slusser Road south of Healdsburg—near where a woman from Ukiah died in another storm two years ago, after getting trapped in her car on Trenton-Healdsburg Road.
To the west in Guerneville, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office reported finding a man dead in his submerged vehicle near Hwy 116 on Saturday. A second death was reported that same day in Santa Rosa, where police say they found a man dead in the receding floodwaters of Piner Creek.
Clark, whose home flooded in Healdsburg, said she’s grateful that possessions are all she lost. She hopes others can learn from what happened to her home. “I don’t wish this on my worst enemy,” she said. “This is an experience no one should have to go through.”
