Diana and Dan Hulme headed to their home on La Madonna Drive in Scotts Valley on Tuesday with their children Olly and Hazel after a large eucalyptus tree fell and blocked their driveway. (Shmuel Sailor – Santa Cruz Sentinel)

SANTA CRUZ — Powerful gusts of wind reaching 130 mph in the mountains on Tuesday and what appeared to be weeks of rain saturated the soil, causing trees to fall across Santa Cruz County, damaging power lines, vehicles, homes, and highways. There was a traffic jam on the road. Accidents, road closures, power outages.

As of Wednesday afternoon, 152 outages in Santa Cruz County left about 16,000 customers without power, and about 30,000 power outages in the county, according to PG&E communications officer Benjamin Spielman. About 14,015 customers have had power restored since Tuesday.

Spielman said about 277 workers are working to restore power across the system, 52 of them in the South Bay and Central Coast. In the mountains of Santa Cruz County, crews are grappling with trees that need to be cut down to allow them to cross roads.

“PG&E crews have suffered extensive damage in Santa Cruz County in connection with this storm. As a result, not only have fallen trees impacted our facilities, but roads have been blocked and access issues have also been experienced. It’s happening,” said PG&E spokeswoman Myra Tostado. “We try to respond to any power outages as quickly as possible to assess the extent of the damage, but road blockages and flooding may hinder recovery efforts.”

The Santa Cruz Mountains were the hardest hit by the storm, with portions of Highway 9 from Scenic Drive in Ben Lomond to Woodland Drive and Bear Creek in Boulder Creek as of Wednesday’s report. • The road remained closed to the junction on Highway 236 near Waterman’s Gap. , both due to fallen trees. The highway has also been closed to traffic from lower Glen Arbor Road to Arboledaway, about 13 miles north of Santa Cruz, due to a landslide, according to the agency. caltrans.

National Weather Service meteorologist Rick Canepa said wind speeds above 58 miles per hour are officially considered damaging by the agency, but Tuesday’s stronger gusts in the Santa Cruz Mountains exceeded that standard. bottom.

“Yesterday morning and afternoon, wind currents developed around Monterey Bay and headed straight for the Santa Cruz Mountains,” Canepa said. “The largest gusts across the Santa Cruz Mountains exceeded 75 to 85 mph.”

Total rainfall varied widely across the county, Canepa said, with the lowest rainfall around Aptos, Capitola, Santa Cruz and toward Watsonville, about an inch to 1 1/3 inch.

In the Santa Cruz Mountains, many areas received more than 3 inches of precipitation, with totals well over 2 inches. Nearly five inches of rain fell in the area around Ben Lomond and Boulder Creek. About four inches of rain fell along the Santa Cruz-Santa Clara County border.

La Selva Beach has seen 2.02 inches of rainfall in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 46.41 inches since the start of the wet season on October 1, according to Sentinel meteorologists. Other totals observed in the county include 1.58 inches in Happy Valley and 1.45 inches in Soquel.

“It was definitely a very powerful system,” Canepa said. “The pressure drop of 2-3 millibars per hour continued through Tuesday morning as it rotated rapidly off the coast and approached the coastline from the previous night. It responds directly to changes in the pressure gradient.”

Canepa said residents of Santa Cruz County can expect even cooler temperatures over the next few days, but at least until Sunday night will be free from rain.

“A predominantly dry cold front will move from the northwest late afternoon and evening on Thursday, with at least two to three days of unseasonably cold weather, especially at night with temperatures more than 10 degrees below normal,” said Canepa. rice field. “We’re going to have very cold weather later in the week and into the weekend, with temperatures close to freezing in the Santa Cruz Mountains and probably close to 40 degrees right next to the ocean.”

Canepa said there were strong indications that rain and wind could return early next week, but he did not yet know exactly when the low would arrive.

“There are different prediction models for when it’s coming,” Canepa said. “It could be as early as late Sunday night, early Monday morning, or even Tuesday.”

Caltrans reported that it will implement daytime lane closures on Highway 17 between Blossom Hill Road and Summit Road in Santa Clara County starting Monday to clear fallen and leaning trees from recent inclement weather. The cleanup is scheduled to be completed by April 7th. Caltrans notes that all work is weather dependent, so drivers should anticipate delays during the cleaning process and factor that into their commute times.

To report or confirm an outage, please visit: pgealerts.alerts.pge.com.

Click here for information on road closures. Roads.dot.ca.gov and tinyurl.com/SCCOCA.

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