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A sycamore fell, landing on two vehicles and damaging the sidewalk on the 300 block on East Walnut Street on Tuesday. (Dan Evans/News-Sentinel)
Storm hits Lodi
Residents face downed trees, fender benders; Thousands in Woodbridge and county in dark; Showers are forecast today in Lodi, Galt
By Maggie Creamer and Jordan Guinn
News-Sentinel Staff Writer
News-Sentinel Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 14, 2009 10:35 AM PDT
A windy, wet storm whipped Lodi and Galt all day Tuesday, sending public works and utility crews scrambling to keep power on and streets clear.
As of 4 p.m. Tuesday, Lodi had received 2.35 inches, according to Lodi Fire Station No. 3. That makes it one of the wettest October days on record.
In the afternoon, both the wind and rain picked up in Lodi and Galt, downing more trees and causing fender benders.
Tuesday night, power was still out to thousands of PG&E customers in Woodbridge and other unincorporated areas.
Downtown Lodi was mostly empty at lunchtime Tuesday with scattered leaves, many of them still green, covering the sidewalks. The few people braving the weather walked bundled in raincoats, leaning into the wind while hiding their faces from the slanted rain.
By 7 p.m., the storm was supposed to slow, with occasional showers continuing throughout the evening, said Andy Mussoline, of the private forecast service AccuWeather.
There was a wind advisory for San Joaquin County in effect until 11 p.m., and a small stream and flooding advisory until 8:30 p.m.
Mussoline expected the rain to continue into Wednesday, but said it should warm up to a high of 75 degrees.
By Thursday, sunny skies are expected, with a high of 78 degrees.
In Lodi, falling trees and bruised fenders
Gusts reached up to 42 mph, causing the phone to ring off the hook with residents calling about trees in roadways, on cars and even in homes, said Curt Juran, Lodi's assistant street superintendent.
As of 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Juran estimated Public Works had received about 53 calls relating to trees and 25 relating to flooding.
"This afternoon, they all decided to fall down. ... We haven't had time to respond to the flooding because we've had so many tree calls," Juran said.
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Because of the number of calls, the streets division had to receive additional help from the water and wastewater departments.
"With the budget cuts in our division, we cannot cover the town sufficiently," he said.
The city has lost 10 trees, but a majority of the calls have been from private residences. Staff has dropped barricades off to the residences with private trees they can't get to, and plans were to work through the evening to continue removing trees from the right-of-way, Juran said. Fender benders happened all around town, Lt. Tod Patterson said, and there were too many to count, but he had not heard of any injuries as of 5 p.m. Tuesday.
Patterson estimated the city has received 80 to 100 calls, with more than 50 coming in just a few hours.
Police heard from numerous residents who said their cars were hit by a tree. One car in the 300 block of East Oak Street was completely demolished by a tree, Patterson said.
There were small power outages on and off all day throughout Lodi, said Ken Weisel, interim director of Lodi's Electric Utility.
As of 6 p.m., there were 50 customers without power in Lodi, Weisel said.
Power had been restored to the 392 customers, who lost power in the morning in four large outages.
They happened at the following locations:
Galt's sewer plant on generator
In Galt, there have been between 50 to 75 calls for everything from flooded streets to trees down to power outages, said Gregg Halliday, Public Works director.
The city's wastewater treatment plant ran off a generator for most of the day, which does not affect the plant's operations. But it does require staff to be on standby to monitor its operations, Halliday said. The city is also running one of its sewer lift stations off a generator.
Tuesday night, plans called for overtime staff to respond to calls and residents could pick up self-service sandbags at 550 Elm Ave. in Galt, in front of the Parks and Recreation Corporation Yard near the railroad tracks.
Tuesday morning, Sacramento Municipal Utility District restored power to 2,200 customers in Galt around Bayshore Drive, said Chris Capra, a SMUD spokesman.
San Joaquin County: Thousands without power
PG&E had 2,730 customers in Lodi without power as of 5:20 p.m. There are 30,450 in the county also without power.
"It's the first significant storm of the year to hit our region, and Mother Nature is packing quite the punch with rain and high winds," spokeswoman Nicole Liebelt said.
She said the problem with a high-winds storm at this time of year is many of the trees still have foliage and still have many leaves, so it makes the branches heavy. She said the utility was bracing for more outages throughout the afternoon as the storm intensified.
Schools suffer outages
School remained in session in Galt, but there were some power outages.
Galt High School, McCaffrey Middle School and River Oaks Elementary School experienced power outages before school started and then for a short time during the school day, Assistant Superintendent Jim Bauler said.
The district had no problems with bus transportation.
Lodi Unified School District is off track until Monday, so there is not regular bus transportation. There were no reports of delays with any of the field trip buses, according to the transportation department.
At Micke Grove, heated dens for the critters
Matt McKim, curator for San Joaquin Micke Grove Zoo, said all the mammals at the zoo have heated dens and they take full advantage of them during stormy weather. However, he did say some animals weren't phased by the rainy weather and even enjoy it.
"Wild animals are adapted to conditions like this," he said. "The animals will hunker down and ride it out."
The zoo was coping with the weather by feeding some animals in different locations so they would stay dry and have their exposure to the elements minimized.
The primates have dens attached to their exhibits as well.
McKim said some of the smaller primates were kept in their dens Monday night because of the high winds and concern about falling tree limbs.
The dens are kept at a fairly constant temperature, McKim said, because a dramatic difference between inside and outside conditions can have a negative effect on the animals. "It just needs to take the edge off," McKim said.
He said most dens are kept between 65 and 70 degrees.
When it comes to staying warm, many animals opt for the traditional method: huddling together.
"The Marmosets and Tamarinds have a box within the den and they huddle in there," McKim said.
Dave Beadles, county parks administrator, said there was a daycamp at Micke Grove Zoo on Tuesday morning until noon, but visitors were turned away after that. He said only people making deliveries or picking up their kids were allowed to enter and the rest were encouraged not to enter. He said the threat of falling limbs was causing concern, and that Oak Grove Park was closed because of it as well. No trees were downed because of the wind, but limbs were falling from some of the trees.
Contact reporter Maggie Creamer at maggiec@lodinews.com.
How to report problems
LodiTo report problems with streets, drainage, water or Lodi Electric Utility power outages, call 368-5735.
San Joaquin County
To report PG&E outages, call (800) 743-5002. To report streets or drainage problems in San Joaquin County, call 468-3074.
Galt
To report streets or drainage problems in Galt, call 366-7260.
Sacramento County
To report power outages to Sacramento Municipal Utility District, call (888) 456-SMUD.
One of the wettest
It looks like Tuesday will go down as one of the wettest Oct. 13ths on record. Here are storm total rain amounts as of 5 p.m. Tuesday, as well as historical rain amounts for this day (Oct. 13) at some of the larger cities.Downtown Sacramento: 3.01 inches
Peak wind gust: 48 mph
Top five wettest Oct. 13ths for Downtown Sacramento
1. 3.63 (1962)
2. 1.52 (1884)
3. 1.20 (1899)
4. 0.48 (1957)
5. 0.32 (1882)
Stockton: 1.05
Peak wind gust: 52 mph
Top five wettest Oct. 13ths for Stockton
1. 0.76 (1962)
2. 0.56 (1957)
3. 0.17 (1968)
4. 0.15 (1979)
5. 0.01 (1972)
Modesto: 1.02
Peak wind gust: 47 mph
Top five wettest Oct. 13ths for Modesto
1. 0.93 (1957)
2. 0.33 (1968)
3. 0.23 (1962)
4. 0.20 (1979)
5. 0.06 (1937)
Other locations:
Cobb: 5.55
Shasta Lake: 3.30
Auburn: 1.24
Paradise: 1.96
Alder Springs: 2.59
Konocti: 2.89
Blue Canyon: 2.27
Travis Airforce Base: 4.75
Vacaville: 4.19
Sims: 6.20
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Reader Feedback
Rhodie v2.0 wrote on Oct 14, 2009 9:56 AM:
I was a very good reminder for the kids as to why we moved away from all that rain. In preping our old house for the move down here I have to replace a fence in weather like that that lasted a week. Nothing like using power tools under a canopy while the wind and rain pour down. "
Acampo_Mom wrote on Oct 14, 2009 8:47 AM:
cem48 wrote on Oct 14, 2009 8:08 AM:
jramagic wrote on Oct 14, 2009 7:57 AM:
Zinfandel wrote on Oct 14, 2009 7:19 AM:
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