Point Reyes Light - November 29, 2001
Hurricane-force gusts fell trees, break wires
By Daniel Freed
After a post-Thanksgiving storm slammed into West Marin with hurricane-force winds, county firemen and PG&E repairmen from Muir Beach to Dillon Beach spent much of the holiday weekend clearing downed trees and repairing snapped power lines.
Point Reyes National Seashore ranger Jessica Taylor told The Light that windspeeds at the Point Reyes Lighthouse gusted to 77 miles-per-hour last Friday night. Windspeeds above 73.6 miles-per-hour are considered hurricane force.
Taylor said that Saturday’s winds gusted up to 50 miles-per-hour, forcing park officials to close the long stretch of stairs between the observation deck and the lighthouse for the entire day.
Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District spokeswoman Mary Currie said that bridge engineers and California Highway patrolmen considered closing the 2.5-mile span when winds there peaked at 50 miles-per-hour Saturday morning. The bridge has been closed only three times in its 64-year history.
Closed lanes on Golden Gate
Winds around the bridge decreased before it had to be closed, but officials still decided to shut down its two center lanes. The two-lane buffer zone – as characterized by Currie – was used to slow traffic and provide room for cars battered by the high winds. Single-lane buffer zones are often used at night to slow down traffic on the bridge, Currie noted.
County firemen stayed busy from just after 6 a.m. until 6 p.m. Saturday responding to a mudslide, two storm-related car accidents, and numerous downed trees and power lines, said Marin Deputy Fire Chief Jim Selfridge.
Firefighters around 8 a.m. responded to a report of a downed power pole that left electrical lines strung across several trailers at Lawson’s Landing campground in Dillon Beach.
Lawson’s Landing manager Willy Vogler told The Light that gusting winds snapped a power pole at ground level early Saturday morning. The falling pole clipped a trailer, damaging its frame and breaking a window, he said. No one was injured in the incident, Vogler said.
"The gusts were pretty intense there for a while," Vogler said. "Luckily they didn’t last that long."
Trees blocked traffic
The main problem caused by the storm’s high winds was downed trees that blocked roadways, Selfridge said. County firefighters responded to three incidents of downed trees on Panoramic Highway, three more in the San Geronimo Valley, two in Inverness Park, one on Highway 1, and one on Platform Bridge Road near Olema.
Selfridge said firefighters Saturday also responded to two car accidents, one in Dillon Beach and another at the intersection of Nicasio Valley Road and Point Reyes-Petaluma Road.
A mudslide caused by the heavy rain slowed traffic along Marshall-Petaluma Road over the weekend when rocks and debris tumbled across an entire lane.
PG&E spokesman Lloyd Coker on Monday said that downed trees took out power lines at locations throughout West Marin, leaving some 1,300 homes and businesses without power.
In Inverness and on Point Reyes 429 homes and businesses lost power from 4:30 to 6:15 a.m. Saturday. In the town of Point Reyes Station, 456 homes and businesses lost power during the same period.
Long outage in Bolinas
In Bolinas just over 180 homes and businesses lost power Saturday evening. Roughly half of the properties blacked out around 6 p.m. and the remainder lost power at 8:20 p.m. Repair crews were not able to restore power to all customers in Bolinas until 8 p.m. Sunday, Coker said.
The storm also took a toll on Muir Beach, where 100 homes and businesses lost power Saturday and part of Sunday.
In Marshall, six different outages on Saturday left 28 homes and businesses without power. Power there was restored to the majority of customers by 5 p.m. Sunday.
Residents of the San Geronimo Valley were also impacted. An outage in Forest Knolls on Saturday was restored before day’s end. About 100 homes and businesses were blacked out in Lagunitas on Saturday morning, and was not restored until early the next day.
Limited outages were also reported in Nicasio, Olema, Stinson Beach, and Tomales.
Rainfall totals surging
Selfridge said that the storm added significantly to monthly rainfall totals for November. Rainfall in Woodacre between Sunday, Nov. 2, and Thanksgiving Day totaled 2.28 inches, bringing the season total to 7.57 inches, he said.
A second storm hit West Marin on Wednesday, again packing high winds and heavy rain. Point Reyes Station on Wednesday evening lost power twice for short periods.
In light of the recently abundant rainfall, Marin Municipal Water District spokeswoman Libby Pischel reminded West Marin residents to "turn off their automatic irrigation systems" and "let Mother Nature take over the watering."