Many trees, wires down as windy weather hits Bay Area; high wind advisory through 7 a.m.
Winds blow out window on Millenium Tower
Downed power lines, toppled trees, blown-out windows, cancelled ferry runs and dangerous driving conditions over the Bay Area's big bridges all were left in the wake of a powerful wind storm. The wind also blew out window on Millennium Tower. Azenith Smith reports
OAKLAND, Calif. - Downed power lines, toppled trees, blown-out windows, cancelled ferry runs and dangerous driving conditions over the Bay Area's big bridges all were left in the wake of a powerful wind storm Sunday that saw gusts of up to 90 mph in the North Bay.
The National Weather Service said Sunday afternoon that a high wind advisory for most areas within the nine Bay Area counties will be in effect until 7 a.m. Monday. Forecasters predict the strongest winds will sweep through early Sunday evening; the highest elevations will get the strongest gusts.
Almost 65,000 Bay Area electric customers were without power as of 2 p.m., a PG&E spokeswoman said. Almost 40,000 of those were in the East Bay.
Despite some social media posts that warned of power shutoffs later Sunday, PG&E said no "public safety power shutoffs" are coming now, as conditions are neither hot enough or dry enough to prompt concern about fires.
PG&E has, however, activated its local emergency centers to facilitate local response to outages.
As of 5 p.m., PG&E was reporting power outages all over the Bay Area, with the greatest concentration of outages in the East Oakland/Hayward/San Leandro area in Alameda County.
Also happening all over the Bay Area Sunday were trees being blown down. El Camino Real in Belmont, Balboa Drive in Oakland's Montclair district and along Oakland's Skyline Boulevard; on Clarewood at Harbor Drive in Oakland's upper Rockridge area; as well as in Concord, Fremont, rural Santa Rosa and many other locations.
As of 5:30 p.m. Sunday, downed electric lines in the 7300 block of state Highway 84 in La Honda in unincorporated San Mateo County had been cleared, and that roadway was reopened in both directions after being closed, with no estimated time of reopening, is closed in both directions due to electrical wires down in the roadway. At this time there is no estimated time for reopening of the roadway.
Windows were blown out by the gusts, as well, including one on the 41st floor of the Millennium Tower in San Francisco Sunday morning. San Francisco firefighters warned drivers and pedestrians to avoid the area near Fremont and Mission Streets because of the broken glass on the ground. No injuries were reported as a result of that window break.
The high winds also affected maritime activities in the Bay Area Sunday, The Golden Gate Ferry between San Francisco, and Sausalito and Larkspur, was suspended for several hours Sunday, starting back up at about 4:30 p.m.