Flooding, power outages and road closures: What happened on first night of SLO County storm
Update, 10 p.m.:
A new outage has left 1,861 customers in Cambria and Harmony without electricity.
The outage began at 8:19 p.m., according to PG&E. Crews are currently accessing the cause of the outage.
Meanwhile the Los Osos outage has been reduced down to 2,596 customers as of 10 p.m.
There are also several reports of downed trees, branches and rocks and mud across the county.
According to CHP’s traffic incident report page, a tree was blocking Highway 1 near Burton Drive as of 9:51 p.m. while mud, dirt and rocks were reported across Avila Beach Drive at Cave Landing Road.
Flooding was also reported at 6th Street and El Morro in Los Osos and at Templeton Road and Eureka Lane in Templeton.
Update, 8:17 p.m.:
More than 6,700 PG&E customers are without power along the North Coast due to a weather-related outage.
PG&E says the outage, which is impacting 6,757 customers in and around Los Osos, began at 7:47 p.m.
There is no estimated time for when power will be restored, according to PG&E.
Update, 8 p.m.:
A flood advisory has been issued for San Luis Obispo County.
The National Weather Service issued the alert at 7:42 p.m., saying Doppler radar indicated heavy rain was moving into the area and minor flooding was ongoing or expected to begin shortly.
According to the alert, 0.2 to 0.4 inches of rain have fallen, and additional rainfall amounts of 0.5 to 1.5 inches are expected.
Some of the areas that will experience flooding according to the agency are San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles, Morro Bay, Pismo Beach, Atascadero, Arroyo Grande, Nipomo and Cambria.
The flood advisory is through 10:45 p.m.
Update, 6:45 p.m.:
The National Weather Service has issued a flash flood warning for the Big Sur coast due to heavy rain in the area.
The weather agency said Doppler radar indicated heavy rain of between 0.25 to 0.5 inches had fallen over the Colorado and Dolan fire burn areas as of 6:17 p.m.
The expected rainfall rate is between 0.5 and 1.25 inches in an hour, according to the warning.
Flash flooding is ongoing or expected to begin shortly. Debris flows are also likely.
Meanwhile the Highway 1 closure has been extended further to the south due to flowing water in the roadway at Ragged Point, according to Caltrans.
The new closure point is the parking lot by the elephant seals viewing area, four miles north of San Simeon.
Original story:
A number of road closures and evacuations were in place as darkness fell Wednesday night and a potentially damaging “bomb cyclone” storm hit San Luis Obispo County.
For much of the day, gusty winds and light rains whipped the Central Coast as residents braced for the worst of the storm to arrive.
On Wednesday morning, the county experienced south to southeast winds from 25 to 30 mph, with gusts as high as 40 mph in the inland areas, and 45 mph along the coast. A high wind warning is in effect through Thursday at 4 p.m.
As of 5 p.m., not much more than showers had fallen across the region, though blustery winds began rattling homes and trees in the mid-afternoon.
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According to the National Weather Service, the heaviest deluge of rain was expected to hit SLO County starting around 6 p.m. and last through midnight, with a slight chance of thunderstorms from early Thursday morning through Thursday evening.
A flood watch is in effect for most of the county through Thursday morning.
Meteorologist John Lindsey said there is potential for the storm to produce record wave heights through Thursday. The all-time significant swell height recorded at Diablo Canyon Power Plant was 21.3 feet, recorded on Jan. 11, 2001.
“If we see record wave heights on Thursday, it’s a testament to the strength of this storm,” Lindsey told The Tribune.
Road closures, evacuations and more as Central Coast readies for storm
Across the Central Coast, agencies and municipalities prepared for what experts warned could be a damaging storm.
Paso Robles issued an evacuation warning Tuesday night for the Salinas Riverbed, while on Wednesday, Santa Barbara County announced mandatory evacuations for three wildfire scar areas.
In the South County, the city of Arroyo Grande announced on Wednesday that it would close El Camino Real from Oak Park Boulevard to Robles Road due to the predicted heavy rainfall.
That closure was expected to begin at 6 p.m. Wednesday.
The Pismo Beach Pier and the Pismo Beach Monarch Butterfly Grove were also closed Wednesday evening.
Meanwhile, Highway 1 — which is often closed ahead of major storms due to the risk of mud and rock slides on the winding roadway — was closed from Ragged Point to just south of Deetjen’s Big Sur Inn as of Wednesday evening, according to Caltrans.
At 5 p.m., Caltrans tweeted that it was monitoring water and debris falling on Highway 1 at Polar Star, one mile south of Ragged Point, and could potentially move the road closure further south if necessary.
Meanwhile, the California Highway Patrol issued a warning urging drivers to stay off the roads through the brunt of the storm.
A number of traffic incidents had been reported as of Wednesday evening, including a traffic collision on Highway 101 south of Nipomo at 4:58 p.m. and one on Highway 46 outside of Paso Robles near Hunter Ranch Golf Course at 4:04 p.m.
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Hundreds without power across SLO County
As of 6:20 p.m., more than 400 PG&E customers were without power due to four outages impacting the area.
The largest outage was in the Luneta Drive area of San Luis Obispo, where about 143 customers lost power at 2:41 p.m. due to an equipment issue. PG&E expects power to be restored to those customers by 7:30 p.m.
In Atascadero, two outages were impacting customers on opposite sides of town: the first knocked out electricity to 134 customers off Traffic Way at 4:28 p.m. The second occurred around 4:40 p.m. in the area of Los Osos Road and impacted 88 customers.
Both outages appear to have been caused by the weather, according to PG&E.
Meanwhile another outage was impacting 50 customers west of South Bay Boulevard in Morro Bay. That outage was also weather caused, according to PG&E.
This story was originally published January 4, 2023 at 5:40 PM.
