‘Bomb Cyclone’ Wreaks Havoc on Healdsburg Area

Now THAT was a storm. A “bomb cyclone,” to be precise. It reportedly brought 4 to 6 inches of rain and “hurricane-force” winds as strong as 50-80 mph to Healdsburg and environs over the weekend. As of Monday afternoon, the PG&E power-outage map showed hundreds still without power in our area, especially out Dry Creek, with no clear repair time — and the blackout situation looked way worse up in Cloverdale and down in Windsor, where locals reported the Walmart shopping center didn’t have power Monday either. Alerts issued by local government agencies during the storm indicated that PG&E had passed its “major event threshold,” meaning they were prioritizing “responding to new roadway/safety incidents for downed lines” over “restoration efforts for many customers who are still without power.” One Sonoma County official tells the Press Democrat that this storm has been “probably the worst we have seen when it comes to trees and power lines down countywide.” The soil was already soft and soggy from last week’s rainstorm, making trees more vulnerable to the crazy wind we saw yesterday. So countless trees blew over, some of them hitting power lines — hence the widespread outages. Here in Healdsburg, the city sent out an alert to residents Sunday evening about a large tree that fell on Hidden Acres Road near South Fitch Mountain Road, blocking the roadway entirely. Up where I live in the hills west of town, on the burn scar from the Walbridge Fire in 2020, the sound of trees falling all across the forest was louder than thunder last night. And a Facebook account that monitors local police and fire scanners reported this morning that a tree had fallen onto power lines along West Dry Creek Road; “tree is smoking,” the report said. Despite all that, I haven’t seen any news of injuries, deaths or major disasters in our area; some other parts of California haven’t been so lucky. (Source: National Weather Service via Twitter & Tempest & Sonoma County Scanner Updates via Facebook & PG&E & SF Gate & Press Democrat; paywall)