After intense weekend storm, North Bay braces for more storms to hit

NOVATO, Calif. - With the weekend storm in the past, the pressing concern is tree falls and mudslides, with four more storms expected between now and the day after Christmas.

The damage was widespread and substantial.

In the Gold Hill Fire District, which heavily depends on volunteer firefighters, the storm proved challenging even though locals in the Sebastopol area are accustomed to them.

"The storm that came in was high intensity, fast-moving, with a lot of heavy wind. Heavy rain came in during the overnight period," explained Chief Jeremy Pierce of the fire district. "People woke up in the morning and found themselves trapped by flooding, roads washing out, roads they couldn't get through, and trees down."

It was more intense than many expected.

"This storm that hit our service area was extremely intense. This is actually the 19th most impactful storm we've seen since 1995. So, this is definitely a big one," said PG&E North Bay Spokesperson Megan McFarland.

Tree removal crews said the high wind and water-logged soil made conditions ripe for trees to come down.     

"We had the entire team working all weekend," said Tad Jacobs, the owner of Treemasters Tree Service in San Rafael. "Fallen trees in streets, on homes, in homes, unfortunately."

Jacobs said he expected more to come down this week and advised homeowners to check their trees for damage. 

"Look around the base of the tree. If you see cracks in the soil, and water pumping, you definitely want to contact your arborist right away," said Jacobs. "Take a look up in the tree too. See if you see any cracks. If you see daylight through the tree, where you didn’t see it before, or if the tree has a more significant lean than it did before. Give an arborist a call."

In Fairfax, more than 1,000 customers temporarily lost power in a storm-related outage Monday evening, which impacted part of the downtown. 

At Nave's Sports and Spirits, bartender Ron Santacruz credited the establishment's antique cash register, lanterns and emergency lights with allowing them to stay open.

"We’ve been putting up with it on and off for years. The problem is every place else has gone computerized and when you do that and the power goes out, you can’t do anything," said Santacruz.    

In Novato, the storm took out four power poles on Fairway Drive all at once, creating complex and major damage that required many crews.

"As they were resetting the poles, they were encountering rock bed, and so that makes setting the poles very difficult," McFarland said.

Novato residents were surprised.

"It was really the wind. The wind was very intense, and we thought we were going to lose trees in our yard," said Michael Kenney. "

"It was extremely intense and almost like hurricane winds almost," said Rebecca Montgomery.