Blustery storm wreaks havoc across SLO County

Heavy winds and rain swept through San Luis Obispo County early Monday morning, toppling trees, causing some flooding and leaving thousands without power.

In Pismo Beach, two trailers at the Pismo Coast Village RV Resort were nearly cut in half by falling Monterey cypress trees about 3:15 a.m.

Their owners, inside the trailers at the time, were able to escape largely unharmed, with one man cutting his foot on some glass.

“I’ve been coming to Pismo since I was a kid, and I’ve never seen a storm like this,” said Santa Clarita resident Dolly Van Houten, whose trailer was also damaged by a falling tree at the park.

The storm also brought a half inch or more of desperately needed precipitation to the region, with some areas receiving an inch or more as of 2 p.m. Monday. Cal Poly recorded nearly 1.5 inches, and areas around San Luis Obispo tallied among the highest results of the day.

“It all adds up,” PG&E meteorologist John Lindsey said Monday afternoon, as scattered showers continued in some areas. “Every little bit helps.”

The wind gusts peaked about 3:30 a.m. with the storm front’s passage, leaving downed trees and power poles throughout the county in its wake.

Lindsey said northwesterly winds peaked with sustained gusts of 48.8 mph, reaching 61.3 mph at the Diablo Canyon meteorological tower.

Outages affected thousands of customers throughout the day in various parts of the county. At different times of the day, as many as 2,425 customers in Los Osos, 427 customers in Nipomo, 652 customers in Santa Margarita, 160 customers in Avila Beach and more than 3,300 customers in San Luis Obispo were without power.

In Cambria, power outages affected a high of 950 accounts. A power pole at Ellis Avenue and Burton Drive went down, leaving about 50 people without power; the pole will need to be replaced. Another power pole fell in the 1700 to 1800 block of Pineridge Drive.

Meanwhile, the wind toppled trees in several neighborhoods, with 15 or 16 incidents reported between midnight and noon Monday.

Cambria resident Karen Snow reported six trees were down at Chiswick Way and Charing Lane, including one that fell on the roof of a house. In all, five homes were hit by trees, but they sustained only minor structural damage. One tree damaged a gas line when it was uprooted near Ardath and Haddon drives.

In Los Osos, where an outage initially left 2,425 customers without power, PG&E and San Luis Obispo County public works crews worked to remove a large eucalyptus tree from Pecho Valley Road.

Grover Beach police reported on its Facebook page that parts of two roads were closed for downed trees: South Eighth Street from Mentone to Nice avenues, and South Fourth Street from Highland Way to the city limits.

Both roads remained closed as of 3:30 p.m.

RV resort hit hard

About five trees fell at Pismo Coast Village RV Resort early Monday, totaling two trailers and damaging several other trailers and vehicles.

Van Houten, who has been staying with her husband in their trailer since Wednesday, said the storm woke her up.

“I asked my husband what was going on out there. He secured a few things and came back in, and all of a sudden this huge gust of wind hit us,” Van Houten said. “The trailer shuddered and moved about a foot, came off its jacks and slanted a little bit.”

She peered out the back door to see a tree had fallen on part of the trailer. “We’re supporting the tree right now,” she added.

Van Houten said she walked around to make sure other campers were OK. Other guests were also checking out the damage.

“About 7:30, the whole grass area in front of our trailer was covered with people taking pictures,” she said. “Everyone was walking around like it’s a field trip.”

Van Houten was thinking of staying another night — as soon as the tree could be removed from her trailer — but wanted to relocate to another site with fewer trees.

“That ground gets saturated and those trees are big, they don’t have taproots,” she said. “If you look at the root balls on them, their roots aren’t that big.”

General manager Jay Jamison said an arborist comes to the RV resort annually to inspect the trees. After a windstorm in January, the park removed 25 of its biggest trees.

Monterey cypress trees can be found on the Central Coast, including in Los Osos and Pismo Beach.

“The thing is when you get winds like this you never know,” Jamison said. “You do your best to make a safe environment, and then you get a freak storm.”

Rain totals

The storm came on the heels of a weekend storm that dumped more than an inch of rain on many Central Coast locations with some locations — Cal Poly, Cambria, Camp San Luis Obispo, San Simeon — reporting 2 inches or more.

The rain totals for that storm included 2.52 inches in Cambria and a whopping 4.32 inches at Walter Ranch. San Simeon picked up 2.40 inches from that earlier storm, and Rocky Butte recorded 4.29 inches.

Michele Oksen, who lives in the rural Santa Lucia Mountains above Cambria, reported that the back-country rain gauge in the mountains read 33 inches of rain for the season.

The weekend storms also raised reservoir levels at Nacimiento Lake, which went from 23 percent capacity on Saturday to 27 percent on Monday, according to the Monterey County Water Resources Agency.

Lake San Antonio remained at 4 percent capacity. San Luis Obispo County Water Resources reported that Salinas Reservoir (Santa Margarita Lake) is at 13 percent capacity and Lopez Lake is 29 percent full as of Monday afternoon.

A break in the rain is expected Tuesday into Thursday, with dry, partly cloudy skies, Lindsey said.

Another cold front is expected to produce periods of southerly winds and heavy rain Friday, which could turn into showers by Saturday morning. Rainfall amounts are expected to range between 0.75 and 1.50 inches.

Rain could return next Sunday and Monday. After that, precipitation could return as early as March 18, with a better chance by March 20, Lindsey said.

This story was originally published March 7, 2016 at 9:18 AM with the headline "Blustery storm wreaks havoc across SLO County."