2 deaths reported during North Bay storms
North Bay storm turns deadly and destructive
Sonoma County Fire District says it responded to 12 incidents in a span of two days where people were stranded in their vehicles after driving on a flooded roadway. A landslide severely damages two homes and threatens 17 others.
SANTA ROSA, Calif. - Two people have been found dead during the North Bay storms, officials said.
Late Wednesday afternoon, the Sonoma County Sheriff's deputies were sent to Franz Valley Road, northwest of Calistoga, where they found body in a culvert on private property.
Then, early Thursday morning, another body was found in west Santa Rosa in the 5800 block of Hall Road.
In West Santa Rosa, a man on a bicycle apparently tried to cross the expanse of water, and paid for it with his life.
"Our rescue swimmers went into the water, they did a grid pattern search and located a male victim. This area where the accident happened is in the Laguna de Santa Rosa, so it's a notorious, low level spot for us that floods very regularly, even in some of the more minor storms," said Division Chief Cyndi Foreman of the Sonoma County Fire District.
With floodwater receding at the key measuring point in Guerneville and lighter rains expected, attention turns to landslides, after a home fell into the Russian River in Forestvillle and another was destroyed in Santa Rosa's Fountain Grove.
"So we're starting to see some of that earth not [being] able to absorb the water, and it's starting to move," said Foreman.
"With the winds that we've had over these last couple of storms, you know the risk of trees coming down gets greater and greater as that ground gets more saturated…all it takes is a little more for some of these areas to possibly slide," said Will Powers of the Santa Rosa Fire Department.
Super-soaked soils cause power outages in two ways.
"When we have a storm like this…the ground gets incredibly saturated and that's a problem for trees coming down, but it does also impact PG&E's equipment, specifically our poles…We can see our poles coming down because the ground is just so saturated," said PG&E spokesperson Megan McFarland.