MONTEREY BAY — A powerful winter storm roared through the Monterey Bay Sunday, tossing power poles and trees to the ground, closing roads, and flooding streets and homes.
Netcom, the 9-1-1 center for Santa Cruz County, dispatched for 38 reports of utility lines down around the county and seven vehicle crashes.
On Monday morning, as clear skies broke through and things started drying out, the storm aftermath left 18 outages in the Watsonville area with 381 customers out of power, Pacific Gas and Electric said.
As of 4:08 p.m., PG&E estimated power would be restored by 5:42 p.m.
Will Pi, meteorologist with the National Weather Service of Monterey, said winds around Watsonville whipped up to 43 mph in Watsonville on Sunday and collected 1.69 inches of rain. In the Santa Cruz Mountains, 4.8 inches of rain fell. Santa Cruz got 1.8 inches of rain.
Pi said his station tracked two waterspouts that came on shore Sunday. One of them ripped a portion of the roof off of the popular Dolphin restaurant, the furthest-most business on the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf. Pi said his crew was looking into whether the spouts were indeed tornadoes.
Pi said another storm will visit the area, bringing more rain that will start up Tuesday night and spill into Wednesday.
“The Santa Cruz Mountains will get most of the rain, similar to Sunday’s weather event,” Pi said. “We’re also looking at a model of possible rain on the weekend.”
