Hundreds lose power, more storms coming
by BARRY W. DUGAN-Managing Editor
Three days of wind and rain slammed and soaked Windsor over the
weekend, knocking down power lines and trees, leaving hundreds of
residents without power and pushing the Russian River past flood
stage.
Nearly 10 inches of rain were measured in Windsor between late
Thursday and Monday. The rains sent the Russian River over flood
stage in Healdsburg and sent the river over its banks just west of
Windsor along Eastside Road where the town’s municipal water wells
are located.
Town officials were poised to shut down the wells in the event
the river threatened to inundate them, but the river receded before
they reached the wells.
Gusting winds knocked down power lines throughout town, and at
least 500 Windsor residents were still without power Monday night,
according to PG&E spokesman Lloyd Coker. They were among the
25,000 customers in Sonoma County hit by the power outages, said
Coker.
A massive oak tree on Alden Lane split in two Sunday night just
after 9 p.m., smashing a garage and damaging a granny unit on an
adjacent property on Harper Court. The residents on Alden Lane were
forced to relocate temporarily because a water heater in the garage
was damaged, said Windsor Fire Protection District officials.
Jim Adams, who lives in the Harper Court home where part of the
tree fell into a granny unit on the property, was home when the
first half of the big oak went down on his neighbor’s garage.
“It was loud,” he said. “It was really, really loud … I don’t
even know how to describe it.”
At about 2:30 a.m Monday, the other half of the tree fell to the
ground in Adams’ yard, part of it falling into the roof of his
granny unit. Fire department crews arrived and helped him cover the
roof with tarps, he said.
“They were just awesome,” said Adams. “I really appreciated it.
They were here until we finished.”
No one was injured in the incident.
Windsor firefighters responded to 20 calls for service Sunday,
including arcing and downed electric wires, a fire caused by a
candle and numerous trees down.
Windsor Fire Chief Ron Collier said given the number of calls,
which he said may be a single-day record for the district, “we’re
in pretty good shape. There were no major problems.”
Flooding was localized in the usual places, such as Windsor Road
as it crosses Windsor and Pool creeks, the intersection of Starr
Road and Mark West Station Road, parts of Eastside Road and Old
Redwood Highway as it crosses under the railroad trestle at
Eastside Road.
Windsor Public Works Director John Johnson said the town was
prepared and weathering the storm well. “We’re in pretty good
shape,” he said. “We’ve been through this drill before.”
Public workers officials were watching the floodwaters in the
Russian River in the event they reached the town’s wells, but the
high water stayed below the well heads. Johnson said if floodwaters
do reach the well heads, the wells would be shut down to avoid any
risk of contamination.
In the event the wells were shut down, the town has a
groundwater well in town, and has water available from the Sonoma
County Water Agency.
On Eastside Road, the rising river took officials at Hanson
Aggregate by surprise. While most of the heavy equipment at the
gravel mining site was moved to higher ground, a huge 140-foot
crane was stranded in one of the terrace pits. Only the boom could
be seen sticking out of the muddy water.
Hanson was scheduled to finish their mining in Windsor this
week, but the storm signaled the end of decades of mining along
Eastside Road for the company and its predecessors.
“I guess I was hoping we wouldn’t have any more problems until
we were done,” said Dennis Ripple, a Hanson official who has worked
at the aggregate since terrace mining started in 1967 and was
overseeing the conclusion of the mining operation. “We were
scheduled to be finished on Dec. 18 … but it’s extremely unlikely
we’ll go back for the amount of material that is left. It truly did
take us by surprise.”
Weather forecasters were expecting another big storm to arrive
Thursday, with more storms expected through the New Year.
