Clear skies over the Bay Area on Sunday revealed the extent of the damage from the record rainfall that hit San Francisco particularly hard. The flooding left ongoing hazards across the region, and residents of Wilton in the Sacramento Valley were sheltered in place following widespread flooding spread by breaching waves.
Sending floating refrigerators, pouring waves of water over store doorsteps and leaving motorists to flee swamped cars on foot, the storm brought flooded homes and businesses, mudslides, evacuations and rescues from wine country to the Central Valley. Thousands of people in the Bay Area remained without power Sunday.
At least one person dead: At Lighthouse Field State Beach in Santa Cruz, a tree fell on a 72-year-old victim Saturday afternoon, authorities said. The man was not immediately identified.
The National Weather Service reported Sunday that most streams and creeks are slowly receding, but many remain above flood stage. Several major freeways reopened after Saturday’s closure.
In the Sacramento Valley, one of three levees breached in rural Wilton, 15 minutes south of Sacramento on I-5. The Sacramento County Office of Emergency Services advised Wilton’s 5,000 or so residents to evacuate where floodwaters on the Consumnes River were rising. Highway 99 was closed in both directions Sunday.
“We have a lot of people who have abandoned their vehicles,” Office of Emergency Services spokesman Matt Robinson said Sunday. “Rescue operations are underway.”
Under a bright sun in San Francisco, washing machines and refrigerators stacked on the sidewalk where Jose Gomez sat Sunday in a pickup truck outside his family’s appliance store, King’s Refrigeration, on 16th Street.
“The water was up to my knees,” Gomez said, recounting how his father called him to the store Saturday morning after a merciless storm brought about three feet of rainwater into the store and refrigerators began floating on the sidewalk.
A family prepares for a walk in the rain on the Embarcadero in San Francisco, California, Saturday, Dec. 31, 2022.
Adam Purdee, Independent / Special to The Chronicle“We have to go after them,” Gomez said.
Storm drains are clogged and roads from Folsom to Treat Street are flooded, Gomez said.
In the Mission, Holt Manchester, store manager at Gus’ Community Market, recounted hours of continuous Saturday mopping, as passing cars sent waves of rainwater onto the market’s floors and through the doorways of other businesses. Manchester said he was worried about being electrocuted using the store’s cash registers.
“We were squeezing the water out and it was coming back in,” he said. Manchester filtered water from the entrance to his nearby apartment building, but towels and sandbags did little to stop it.
“The Muni buses coming down 17th Street were causing waves that were halfway to all the businesses,” he said. “Kids could have surfed these waves. I was up to my thighs in water,” he said.
Elsewhere in the Bay Area, rising waters were reported spilling over the banks of the San Francisquito Creek, causing flooding in the Palo Alto and Menlo Creek areas, including low-lying east Palo Alto.
Many area roads were closed due to flooding, with hazardous conditions prompting officials to warn residents not to drive around barricades as the water ran deeper and faster than it appeared.
About 15,000 Bay Area residents are without power due to storm activity, PG&E reported Sunday. Half of these are in the East Bay, with 7,000 outages, while the South Bay has 3,400 outages and the Peninsula has 2,600 outages. In San Francisco, 849 customers were without power.
In the Tahoe area, I-80 was reported to have reopened Sunday with chain restrictions, after being closed Saturday night due to heavy snow. Caltrans warned motorists that “roads are extremely slick” and cautioned motorists to drive slowly as the road remains open. Caltrans, CHP and tow operators spent New Year’s Eve towing dozens of vehicles stuck in the snow.
Tahoe-area ski resorts reported 35 inches of snowfall in the previous 24 hours Sunday morning. Palisades Tahoe and Kirkwood both reported some lifts closed with windy conditions on the mountains.
In San Mateo County, Highway 84 was closed in several places Sunday morning, the county sheriff’s office said. Other roads are still closedNiles Valley Road Near Mission Boulevard, a major thoroughfare between Fremont and Sunol in the East Bay. Officials have not given an estimated list for road reopening.
Highway 101 near South San Francisco reopened by Sunday after being closed Saturday after heavy flooding, and Highway 92 reopened in Half Moon Bay.
If a Sunday break in the weather offers a respite, it will be short-lived. The National Weather Service is forecasting lighter rain on Monday and Tuesday, before an even stronger atmospheric river arrives on Wednesday.
The weekend storm caused an atmospheric river to plow over the region, breaking San Francisco’s one-day rainfall record. The National Weather Service reported the second wettest day in 170 years of record-keeping — just 8 hundredths of an inch shy of the all-time mark of 5.54 inches set in 1994.
Oakland recorded its wettest day on record since 1970, with 4.75 inches of rain, beating the previous record set in 1982. It was the third wettest day on record for Redwood City going back to 1906 and beat the previous record set in 1962. .
But the many residents and business owners inundated by floodwaters have a tough job ahead. In San Francisco, owners of restaurants, gyms and grocery stores were swept up and assessing the damage.
Among the sinkings was the Wooden Nickel Bar in the Mission District. Instagram posts showed a man wading in water up to his knees. Another man sneaked into the back of the bar through a layer of seeped water. The parklet near the bar was also washed away by the rush of water.
In Alameda County, sheriff’s deputies said 19 elderly adults were rescued from a long-term care facility in Castro Valley that apparently flooded.
Attractions are closed Saturday, including Muir Woods, Point Bonita Lighthouse, Tennessee Valley Beach and the Golden Gate Bridge at the upper end of Conzelman Road. Officials said they were responding to reports of flooding and downed trees at Marin County sites. Alcatraz is also closed.
Southern parts of Sonoma County, from Forest Hills to Petaluma, appeared to have the most flooding in the North Bay, with several creeks overflowing.
Sam Whiting, Rachel Swan and Nora Mishanek are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
