Major winter storm floods Cambria, prompts road closures and evacuations
Cambria was among the Central Coast communities slammed hardest by Friday’s major storm, with some in town reporting nearly 7 inches of rain in their garden gauges since the atmospheric river blew onto the Central Coast.
Much more rain fell along the area’s creek roads and in the hills. Rocky Butte saw 10.4 inches between Thursday and Friday afternoon, according to San Luis Obispo County’s 24-hour rain tally.
Meanwhile, the official gauge at Main Street and Santa Rosa Creek Road came in at 5.19 inches, according to the county’s data.
The area isn’t fully out of the woods just yet.
More light rain was in the forecast for Saturday before a brief respite on Sunday; then a new storm is forecast to arrive early next week.
What happened along North Coast during strong winter storm?
The deluge came in waves — some of them prolonged downpours — and produced overlapping emergencies throughout Cambria on Friday.
Landslides, including a big one behind the Cambria Public Library and another behind the planned skate park location, floods, evacuations, a sewage spill and even a call to assist someone reportedly riding a kayak in the flooded creek water were only some of the crises facing residents, business people and first responders during the storm.
Many of the emergencies were triggered by flooding from Santa Rosa Creek, which winds through the downtown area and other sections of town.
According to emergency radio traffic, reports from first responders, officials and residents, the creek water also flowed across East Fiscalini Ranch by Mechanics Bank, into the Oak Village Mobile Home Park, onto Main Street, behind Village Lane and the lumber yard, and in many other areas.
Evacuations and water rescues were required in some of those locations to get people safely to higher ground and away from the potential danger.
Cambria Fire Department personnel, especially its swift water rescue technicians, handled evacuations in the mobile home park, assisted by other emergency crews.
As the creek waters rose and threatened the community, the San Luis Obispo County Office of Emergency Services released an evacuation order for some parts of town.
Among the areas subject to evacuation orders for a time were those that are north of Santa Rosa Creek, west of Bridge Street, south of Main Street and east of Cambria Drive.
The landslide behind the library also required the county closure of Pineknolls Drive above it, and people in the library and in most of the adjacent businesses left the area.
The north end of the West Village flooded around the Shell station, forcing a road closure, and high waters inundated the Pinedorado Grounds.
Bridge closure, flooding cuts off Cambria neighborhood
At mid-morning, the San Luis Obispo County Public Works Department, Cambria Fire Department and other first responders put a hard closure on Windsor Boulevard, which connects the densely populated Park Hill residential area with Highway 1, Moonstone Beach Drive and downtown Cambria.
The closure was necessary because as the rapidly rising Santa Rosa Creek overflowed its banks, the water threatened the crucial bridge on Windsor Boulevard, also flooding the roadway toward Shamel Park.
That county street is the only way drivers could get onto and off Park Hill. A narrow, hard-surfaced but unpaved locked access road stretches across Fiscalini Ranch Preserve, but was for emergency-responder traffic only.
By 5 p.m., the flood waters had receded enough to reopen Windsor Boulevard, Cambria Community Services District said in an email. The emergency road gates into the Fiscalini Ranch Preserve were closed and locked.
The district asked people to “please drive slowly down Windsor Boulevard, as it is now in extreme disrepair.”
“We will continue to monitor the creek rise and fall, to determine future access to the Park Hill neighborhood,” the CSD said.
Some ranch bridges also were inundated by the raging flood waters. According to residents, slides, fallen trees and flooding closed parts of San Simeon Creek Road on Friday, with one resident in that area reporting having had 13.5 inches of rain by late afternoon.
Sewage spill reported as Cambria lift station floods
The swiftly flowing flood waters also over-topped a Cambria Community Services District sewage lift station and water well, with the former triggering a sewage-spill notice from the SLO County Department of Public Health on Friday afternoon.
Neither of those situations required any immediate response from the public, such as boiling their drinking water, CSD General Manager Ray Dienzo said.
The district hasn’t used that water well in months, he said, because the quality of the water from it isn’t as good as the water from the CSD’s primary wells by the high school and along San Simeon Creek.
He said the flood also damaged the district’s recently repaired resources office on Rodeo Grounds Road, which had been nearly destroyed by a flood a few years ago.
He said Friday’s rising waters did not impair the CSD’s water booster station there.
“Looks like we dodged a bullet again,” Dienzo said. “The actual water level didn’t get up to a level where it damaged it.”
Hearst Castle and some other area State Parks units and locations were closed for the day.
Utility and other crews also dealt with a few power outages, roads blocked by fallen trees or landslides.
Among those agencies responding were Cambria Fire Department and utility crews, PG&E, San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office deputies, California Highway Patrol officers, Cambria Community Healthcare District ambulances and others.
As the end of the day, and the worst of the storm, approached, Santa Rosa Creek Road resident Steve Brody — whose ranch bridge had been under water earlier in the day — summed it all up succinctly in an email to The Tribune around 4:30 p.m.
“Creek down dramatically,” he wrote, with a smiling face emoji at the end.
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This story was originally published March 10, 2023 at 5:53 PM with the headline "Major winter storm floods Cambria, prompts road closures and evacuations."
