A string of strong winter storms slammed the Central Coast over the past several days, toppling power and communication lines, knocking down scores of trees and sending mud slides across roads around Santa Cruz and Monterey counties.
By Friday afternoon, more than 10,000 customers were without power in Monterey County, while Santa Cruz County reported more than 5,000 customers out of power in pockets around the region.
Meteorologist Brayden Murdock of the National Weather Service of Monterey said other than scattered showers into Friday night, mild, dry conditions are next in line.
”We might not see rain until the New Year,” he said. “We’re really set up for much calmer weather starting this weekend.”
While scores of reports across social media referenced a “tornado” ripping through the Sand Cruz Small Craft Harbor on Christmas Day, Murdock said “We had no indication that a tornado touched down. There was a lot of wind damage in the harbor and we had issued a tornado warning; but reports show there was no tornado.”
Watsonville and Santa Cruz weighed in with a little over an inch of rain and the Santa Cruz and Santa Lucia Mountains took in between 4-6 inches.
In Santa Cruz, a massive pine tree smashed into an industrial building on the 2500 block of 7th Avenue near Soquel Drive on Christmas afternoon.
“We were home preparing for a prime rib Christmas dinner when that tree came down,” said a woman who said her name was Kerrie. Surveying the damage from their front yard Friday, a man there named Nate said he “knew it was going to come down.”
“At around 4pm I heard it crack and I ran indoors and ran back inside and told Kerrie, ‘We’ve got to pack up and get out!’”
That’s when Kerrie muscled the undone prime rib out of the oven and they headed up with their kids to a friend’s house to finish cooking Christmas dinner.
“Fortunately, the tree fell in that direction and not over our house,” Nate said.
