Second storm of season expected Saturday
Gilroy – A week of gray skies and wet weather are in store for Gilroy as the 2006 storm season blows into South County.
The first winter storm last weekend broke the seal on power outages and flooding in Gilroy, where about 1,000 homes lost power Saturday night and several intersections in the city’s core were covered in water.
An inch-and-a-half of rain fell during the weekend and another third of an inch is expected to fall in light showers through Friday, said Carolina Walbrun, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Monterey.
“The storm gates are open,” she said, “and we’re going to continue to see these storms move through the area for the next couple of months.”
The second storm of the season is expected to arrive Saturday morning, Walbrun said. She said it would resemble last weekend’s storm, but that it is too early to predict rainfall.
Public agencies and PG&E are kicking into high gear in advance of the bad weather. In Gilroy, city workers are clearing leaves from roads and using a vactor truck to clean storm drains, said Todd Barreras, supervisor of Gilroy’s street, sewer and forestry division.
Last weekend, a milk carton and a piece of cardboard were the culprits behind flooding at two of the four areas where water rose higher than the edge of sidewalks.
“We’ve been very lucky,” Barreras said. “No trees came down … It’s when we get back to back storms and the ground is soaked – that’s when we start having problems.”
PG&E workers this weekend fixed a downed power line in east Gilroy and a failed transformer in the northwest quadrant of the city.
“This storm wasn’t the biggest one we’ve seen – for sure,” PG&E spokesman Brian Swanson said. “It was a moderate storm, but we’re definitely in storm response mode.”
They’re not the only ones. The Santa Clara Valley Water District has stockpiled 40,000 sandbags at distribution sites across the county, including locations in Morgan Hill and San Martin.
Like PG&E, the agency works year-round on preventive measures such as clearing vegetation and sediment from creek beds.
Marc Klemencic, the water district manager in charge of creek and watershed maintenance for South County, said dry ground prevented any flooding during the first storm. As the area gets hit with additional rain, crews will check frequently on flood-inducing “hot spots” such as bridge piers and culverts.
