North Bay will bear the brunt of atmospheric river, flood watch in effect

North Bay bracing to bear the brunt of atmospheric river

The North Bay is slated to bear the brunt of the atmospheric river headed for the Bay. Though it will rain all weekend, the National Weather Service says the heavy rains come Monday and Tuesday; trailing off for the rest of the week. There is a flood watch from noon Friday to Sunday at 10 p.m.

SANTA ROSA, Calif. - Since the North Bay will get the most rain and the hardest hits, the now routine preparation phase is already well in place. Though it will rain all weekend, the National Weather Service says the heavy rain comes Monday and Tuesday; trailing off for the rest of the week. There is a flood watch from noon Friday to Sunday at 10 p.m.

Experienced North Bay folks are used to battening down the hatches as best they can in advance of the deluge. It's expected to be as much as eight inches in the coastal mountains.

The encouraging news is that with the long dry spell, porous soils will be able to suck up much of the water.

"I think that most people are relieved to see the rain, especially in California, you know, with the fires and what not." said Heather Knox-Sloan of Santa Rosa. "I think it's climate change. I think there's something going on with that definitely. I'm a native Californian and this seems to be very unusual to have it do intense and accompanied by the winds also," said Santa Rosan John Goehring.

Given the enormous rains of over a month ago, the folks who wanted sand bags have pretty much gotten them. It's not a big deal right now. But there are other things that can happen to your home or your business that you do need to consider.

While flooding and mudslides are obvious risks, long term risks during prolonged rains include obvious and hidden leak damage which bring toxic molds into the home. Consistently soaked wood degrades as well as some walling. The other danger is erosion around and under the dwelling.

But as we saw at Santa Rosa's Mission Ace Hardware store, there is plenty of stock of emergency dams, tarps and flexible plastic to reroute water as well as sump pumps to keep areas dry. And, there are many effective anti-mold cleaners. "I think we all tend not to do anything until it actually happens to us," lamented John Goehring of Santa Rosa.

PG&E says crews are being placed in likely outage areas where they will work extended hours once damage comes. The first outages will come from shorted out or burned out transformers.

"Whenever you have a period of time without rain, allowing that dust to build up on the transformer, it causes an outage on that particular transformer that then will need to be replaced," said PG&E spokesperson Jeff Smith.

When the ground becomes saturated, even moderate winds become a factor. "It doesn't take as much wind in order to topple over trees into power lines and things like that. That can actually happen at lower wind speed just because of the saturation of the ground," said Smith.

This woman is more concerned with non-PG&E outages: the internet. "Just earlier today, I was working from home and I totally lost my internet connection. We're so reliant on that anymore with so many people working from home," she said.

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