#storm-damage

#storm-damage

It's 2:30 PM on a Tuesday. You're at work. A text arrives from your neighbour: "Your roof tiles are falling in your garden." Your stomach drops. You're thirty minutes from home. You can't leave work immediately. Even if you could, what would you do? Your roof is damaged. You don't have a roofer's number. You don't know what to do first.

A Guerneville family is rebounding and receiving community support nearly one week after their home was destroyed by a fallen tree that just barely missed a 3-year-old girl as she slept in her crib during a raging winter storm just one day before Christmas. Now living at a Windsor hotel, the family has had time to take a breather and reflect on the damage that forced them out of their home of nearly four years on Highway 116 near Riverside Drive.

"Which would then take the power from that grid, put it into batteries and then in outages that occur from storm systems like this actually go ahead and kick on and keep people with power for the amount of time that we think's going to be necessary to see power restored in really terrible storm systems," Supervisor Mueller said.

Both Tejon Pass rest areas, off I-5 northbound and southbound, closed Friday due to storm damage, "including accumulation of sediment and wastewater into the facilities' water supply," Caltrans wrote on social media. There is currently no timeline for when the rest stops will reopen. "We have a contractor ... doing some damage scoping to get an idea of the extent," Christian Lukens, a Caltrans spokesperson, told SFGATE on Monday. "We're hoping to have the contractor start later today or sometime tomorrow."

"It's tragic here," said Travis Guenther, 54, who lives in the town's Happy Jack neighborhood. "This is a horrible scene down here."

A blown transformer appears to be to blame for the partial closure of the Caldecott Tunnel, which could extend into the weekend, Caltrans officials said Friday. The mechanical issue which was caused by a string of powerful storms that slammed into the Bay Area this week shut down bores 1 and 3 of the Caldecott Tunnel on Wednesday evening, causing delays on Highway 24, a key connector between Alameda and Contra Costa Counties.

About 16,500 customers were affected by a power outage caused by a Pacific Gas & Electric substation in Saratoga on Wednesday morning. A utility company spokeswoman said they received reports of a fire at the substation around 8:25 a.m. Wednesday. Santa Clara County Fire personnel responded to make sure surrounding community and PG&E employees were safe. The fire was isolated to a certain area of the substation and ended up extinguishing by itself, so no fire suppression efforts occurred.

Even in picturesque California, few landscapes are as stunning - or as fragile - as Big Sur. The constant storms and seismic activity that forged its dramatic cliffs and canyons also make its infrastructure a nightmare to maintain. The primary road through the region, world-famous Highway 1, which clings to cliffs high above the Pacific Ocean in postcard worthy fashion, is almost constantly closed by landslides, isolating communities and stranding weary travelers.

Incline Village's fireworks show is canceled due to storm damage that affected the fireworks barge, as confirmed by the Washoe County Sheriff's Office. The cancellation is part of several shows being called off this year.

The worst-hit city was Rovinj, where trees were torn down, roads blocked, and dozens of yachts stranded. Emergency crews worked through the night, with over 100 callouts reported in 24 hours.