how are you california folks doing with that weather?

[username]

i see lots of wild pictures on the web from california. marin county, home of our president, got 7 inches of rain. is he ok? has he had to install intake snorkels on his GS to ride around?

what about all the other folks out there, are you and yours safe and dry? got any interesting photos?

[cjack]

i see lots of wild pictures on the web from california. marin county, home of our president, got 7 inches of rain. is he ok? has he had to install intake snorkels on his GS to ride around?

what about all the other folks out there, are you and yours safe and dry? got any interesting photos?

There were some interesting (awful) pictures of Yountville on the news...

[SNC1923]

Had my first ride of the year today. First 75 miles through the canyon and up the mountain were great. Stopped for a wonderful breakfast by the lake. The second 75 miles were a great deal wetter, though nonetheless fun. Was worried about my iPod in my breast pocket, but pulled into my garage just as its case was beginning to absorb moisture.

The folks up north have it far worse than we do. Wet, but rideable.

Happy new year.

[deanzat]

Funny you should ask. It's raining lightly in Ojai right now, but my wife, son and I spent the day sandbagging. Last January 10 our house got flooded, as shown in the photos linked below. National weather service says we could get 16 inches in the local mountains tonight/tomorrow, which could wipe us out again. The house is rebuilt, but our finances and psyches will never be the same.

A rainy day used to mean: build a fire, pour some wine, and read a good book with a cat on my lap. Now it's pretty much just anxiety and sandbagging...

http://www.pbase.com/deanzat/2005_flood_jan_10

PS: last year I had over 200 sandbags in place and could have stopped 18 inches of water. Too bad we got 24...

[DarrylRi]

I went out for a 100 mile ride in the Santa Cruz mountains today, to meet a friend at Alice's. Turned out a bit longer.

CA-9 from Santa Cruz was closed in two places yesterday, so I tried to take CA-17 to Skyline Blvd. Unfortunately, PG&E had it closed and I had to take a Bear Creek down to Los Gatos. Then I took the other side of CA-9 back up to Skyline, and only 1 3/4 hours later, I made it.

Power was out along most of the mountain tops. As I rode into the parking lot, there were a bunch of PG&E, Caltrans and independent contractors trucks there, and they were discussing who was going where. The store was closed, and Alice's was open only because they had a generator.

My friend bought an HP2 yesterday. He said it was perfect weather for riding it. ;-)

Other than the two of us, there were a bunch of guys on Harleys. They were out on the annual Pop Dreyer New Years Day Run. Several of them were openly envious of my heated grips and Gerbings jacket...

Hey, Burnszilla! How are you doing up there in the trees? I saw in the Sentinel that there was some kind of a slide near you -- everything OK?

[Burnszilla]

I have not heard of the mudslide. We just got back from my friend's chalet in Soda Springs near Donner Lake. Lots of snow and rain on the drive back. I've never seen the Sacramento River Flood Plain flooded before. Along the 80 it looks like an ocean out there. It's still raining here at home.

[PacWestGS]

I have not heard of the mudslide. We just got back from my friend's chalet in Soda Springs near Donner Lake. Lots of snow and rain on the drive back. I've never seen the Sacramento River Flood Plain flooded before. Along the 80 it looks like an ocean out there. It's still raining here at home.

Steve I'm glad to hear you are OK have you seen the news yet. I-80 is closed due to a mudslide that wiped out a couple 18-wheelers and closed the highway this afternoon. Don't know how close that was to your friends house but I know it was up that way.

Again glad to hear you are OK.

Russ

[Harrington]

I finally got out after a few weeks off the RT. It wasn't raining in the central valley but it was pretty darn windy. It was a little breezy by Carnegie but it was knarly(sp?) in Tracy/Byron. It was fun dodging the tumbleweeds. There was one stop where I was perpendicular to the wind. The RT felt like a sheet of plywood in the wind.

It's just windy here. Other areas are getting beat up.

[kbasa]

It's kind of a mess here in Marin right now. The rain has been pretty steady, with occasional breaks today.

I went up to the grocery store yesterday and someone's house was working as the funnel point for the entire hillside. There was water flowing around the house (not through it, as far as I could tell) and there was debris, mud and all kinds of junk out in the street. I thought that was pretty bad.

Today, Tina and I took a ride in the truck for a while and ventured a bit further up our valley. In the next neighborhood west, two folks were out emptying their homes of their belongings. Water had managed to flood both houses. In the first one, water had collected on the hillside and managed to flow right through the person's house. In the second house, they were in a low spot and it looked like they'd been flooded. In both cases, there was six inches of mud in front of the house and the DPW was out with a bucket loader scooping the mud out of the road and trying to get the storm drains emptied to resume normal drainage.

No mudslides of any consequence, but it looks like the hills are pretty well saturated. There are spots on the other side of the crest of Lucas Valley where the hill sides have slumped a bit.

We were out for a couple hours. When we left, I was kind of thinking it might have been good to have the GS out today. However, after seeing all the mud on the streets, the debris everywhere and the general mayhem, I was glad to be in the truck.

We're cool right now in Marin, but I know some of my neighbors aren't.

[DarrylRi]

I have not heard of the mudslide. We just got back from my friend's chalet in Soda Springs near Donner Lake. Lots of snow and rain on the drive back. I've never seen the Sacramento River Flood Plain flooded before. Along the 80 it looks like an ocean out there. It's still raining here at home.
Oops, I misremembered it:
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2006/January/01/local/stories/01local.htm
Heavy winds blew down trees on Glenwood Cutoff near Highway 17, blocking the one-lane road and downing telephone and cable lines at about 10:30 a.m.

Resident Walter Locke said he heard a Bay tree "snap" just outside his home.

Locke and two friends were quick to take matters into their own hands, firing up a chain saw and revving up a backhoe to clear the only roadway into the neighborhood. The CHP responded, directing traffic while the men cleared the roadway.

"If we waited for the county to come and do it, we'd be waiting forever," said Locke and his friends, who didn't seem to mind the inconvenience.
Anyway, glad to hear you're not in trouble up there.

[Belg]

I have not heard of the mudslide. We just got back from my friend's chalet in Soda Springs near Donner Lake. Lots of snow and rain on the drive back. I've never seen the Sacramento River Flood Plain flooded before. Along the 80 it looks like an ocean out there. It's still raining here at home.

The local indian tribes always said it used to be a lake, before the settlers came. All of the central valley...

[Belg]

Oops, I misremembered it:
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2006/January/01/local/stories/01local.htm

Anyway, glad to hear you're not in trouble up there.

That Paradise Park, back in 1982... didn't just have high water, it had massive mudslides that if I recall correctly, killed about 200 (217?) people. It's a closed community up Hwy 9 about 3 miles from Salz Leathers.

Those mudslides prompted the building moratorium in SC County which prevented construction of any new dwelling on greater than a 1% grade (again, if I recall correctly) which pretty much capped the market.... driving prices through the roof for housing.

All that being said, havign lived in them there hills... and the ones east of Sac... and been a California boy all my life... I'm watching with rapt attention to... the kind of weather we're used to having every few years. Good luck and hunker down...

[B2BWYLD]

.....the San Joaquin...Delta waterways are always areas of problems when we have the rain we have had the last two weeks. The winds today in areas to 50mph are having some people evacuate their homes in the Delta farm land areas.

...a 1000 miles of waterways in the Stockton and Tracy areas...and areas just south of Sacramento....keeps us "flat landers" watching the weather channel.....

.....the weather is suppose to lighten up the next few days......if not...the pontoons will be mounted on the RT for the get-a-way!... :hide

[Burnszilla]

Oops, I misremembered it:
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2006/January/01/local/stories/01local.htm

Anyway, glad to hear you're not in trouble up there.

Ya, I know Walter Locke. I take the Glenwood Cutoff everyday on the way back home. The neighbors around here always take action when a tree falls. Two years ago I saw a redwood fall just down the road so I grabbed my chainsaw to help cut it up and move it.

[Belg]

I just rememberred something else about Paradise Park.. has a sign at the entrance... "Motorcycles not allowed" and one time, I had a carpet measure up there... I rode my Kawa 750 up there for it :=)

[DarrylRi]

Ya, I know Walter Locke. I take the Glenwood Cutoff everyday on the way back home. The neighbors around here always take action when a tree falls. Two years ago I saw a redwood fall just down the road so I grabbed my chainsaw to help cut it up and move it.Of course, it's the same everywhere in the hills. If the neighbors don't take it in hand, then the county will get around to it... eventually.

Our road association works hard to keep things in good repair to try to avoid a lot of the winter weather problems, and we've got three different families with tractors that practically race each other to work on a tree down or a culvert plugged.

[serazin]

All the nasty weather and really heavy rain has been missing Modesto.

[ian408]

It's been raining steadily but not hard today.

What got us here in the South Bay were the winds. Most places got gusts
to 30 or so. The town of Los Gatos had gusts of 50 plus.

A fairly large number of older trees were blown over. The hardest hit
community seems to have been Los Gatos with trees ending up on homes.
One fell across one of the trails killing a bicyclist.

Of course there are the usual mudslides--maybe more of them and power
outages.

Ian

[Burnszilla]

I just found out some of the neighbors around us have not had power for 3 days, since that tree fell down on the Glenwood Cut-off. Power lines are down on the cut-off and laying off to the side of the road.

[The_Veg]

Please send your rain to TexSux. It would be win-win for all parties involved.

[Belg]

Looks like the tre-annual closure of Hwy 9 between SC and Felton happenned...

I can't count how many times that stretch of road's been shut down.

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2006/January/02/local/stories/01local.htm

For that matter, I can't count how many times I ground the footpegs down at the long sweeper 35 around 2 miles south of felton.... or just about any other convenient corner.

Hope you guys are all intact and the trees that are down get chopped up evenly and everyone has a warm fire or two out of it :)

[ian408]

Made a run over to the the beach today. Lots of water on the roads.

17 has its share of trouble. Mudslides have closed the number 2 lane in a
few places and people still drive like idiots. Drove Swanton Road--glad it was
in the truck as there were rocks, trees and all sorts of other debris.

84 wasn't much better. Stopped for lunch at the Skylonda store and heard
they'd been without power for the better part of two days.

It was still raining when I got home this afternoon. So much for the break
starting at noon :D

Ian