Crews in San Francisco spend day cleaning up trees toppled by torrential rain

SAN FRANCISCO - San Francisco is cleaning up after this weekend’s storms. The city is clearing downed trees and branches and pools of standing water.

One of the wettest storms to hit the Bay Area is now in the rearview. The storm flooding roads and knocking down trees and branches throughout San Francisco.

Public works crews are hard at work throughout the city clearing downed trees and branches. A Monterey cypress on Edge Hill in the West Portal neighborhood came crashing down Sunday morning. 

Neighbors say they know they live next to a steep slope where the recipe for disaster is "just add water." 

"So, I was just checking out. I was looking over down there, not too bad a few tree branches down," said Glenn Gullmes. "I looked over there, and the tree had fallen across the road and had slammed into my neighbors rear windshield and shattered it completely."

The city's Department of Public Works says 700 or so trees and tree limbs came down over the weekend. 

"We're able to remove most of the trees from the roadways, off of cars, off of power lines," said Rachel Gordon from San Francisco's Department of Public Works. "All the prioritized calls have been dealt with already. You'll see some caution tape around town. We expect at least several days more of clean up."

Downed trees was only part of the problem, all around San Francisco catch basins filled with leaves and debris and backed up sending water onto the roads and sidewalks. Fire crews closed down Marina Boulevard while they worked to clear drains and neighbors scrambled to clear drains on their own. 

"Clearing catch basins, we had more than 200 of those with localized flooding at intersections," said Gordon. "Most of those have been cleared if not all of them by this time."

The storm also impacted the city's power grid, many neighbors were left without electricity for hours. "No power, yeah," said Jack McKenna. "Well this happened earlier, the power went out, I guess 10:30 it was definitely out, and it came on last night."

The damage wasn't limited to San Francisco's streets, parks in the city also saw some 40 trees come down and water submerged a portion of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive next to Mallard Lake in Golden Gate Park. 

"The things that people love about parks, all the trees, the lakes, these are the very things that can be challenging in a storm and the things we have to keep out eye on," said Tamara Barak Aparton from San Francisco's Recreation and Parks Department.

All eyes will continue to be on Golden Gate Park the Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival is set to start this Friday. Crews were able to move gear into position before the storm, and set up equipment to protect the meadows where the shows will take place. Now they're hoping for dry weather for the rest of the week.