Pacifica Pier News

Part of the roof and subsequently the interior sheet rock were torn off of this house at 1344 Crespi Dr. in Pacifica on Wednesday morning.[mathew sumner/staff ]Thousands of people were without electricity Wednesday as a hairy storm blasted San Mateo County and the rest of the Bay Area, causing floods, flight delays, road closures and minor auto accidents.

The National Weather Service put out a flood warning and high-wind and high-surf advisories for San Mateo and other counties. Between 1 and 2 inches of rain soaked the County during the morning deluge.

Although the worst of the storm had passed by early afternoon, forecasters said showers and isolated thunderstorms could continue into Friday.

“The brunt of the system has come through,” said meteorologist Rick Canepa, adding that there is a 40 percent chance of showers on Thursday night and a 30 percent chance on Friday night.

The rain and heavy winds knocked out power to more than 43,000 customers across the Bay Area. A spokeswoman for Pacific Gas & Electric said power was expected to be restored to all but a hundred or so customers by early this morning.

“This is the windiest storm we’ve had this season,” said Paul Moreno of PG&E, which reported that up to 5,000 County customers had no power at 10 a.m. “We were doing really well until about 5 a.m., when the outages started and the heavy winds began.”

The majority of outages were in Daly City and San Bruno; others affected live in Half Moon Bay, Pacifica and Belmont. By about 5 p.m., the power was back on for all but 739 of those customers.

The wind was so powerful that electrical wires fell and the roof blew off a home on Crespi Drive in Pacifica, said North County Fire Authority spokesman Dave Dewey.

Dewey said emergency crews were busy

fielding numerous flooding calls, but had not ordered evacuations in most of the cases.

Westpark Drive and the surrounding Westlake Shopping Center saw some of the worst flooding, with three feet of water standing in some areas. Firefighters had to pull one motorist from a car who got stuck in water on Westpark, Dewey said.

“The storm drains were over-taxed,” Dewey said. “Everyone’s safe and we got the person out of the vehicle.”

Highway 1 in Pacifica was closed for two hours Wednesday, until 10 a.m., and phone lines went down at San Pedro Avenue. The Pacifica Pier was closed last night and remained closed throughout the day.

A Pacifica Public Works Department spokesperson said three large trees came down, including one on Eastlake Avenue that narrowly missed a city employee.

Farther south on the Coast at Pillar Point Harbor, all available staff spent the morning tying up boats to secure the pier. Lt. John Quinlan, of the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office substation in Moss Beach, said his office had received more than 30 weather-related calls by late morning about “downed trees, downed wires…and garbage cans flying everywhere.”

He said the sign at the Shell gas station at the corner of Highway 92 and Main Street also came down.

Flights in and out of San Francisco International Airport were delayed throughout the day.

SFO spokesman Mike McCarron said at 11:20 a.m. that arrivals were coming in up to 45 minutes late and that departures were expected to be delayed all afternoon.

The heavy rains also flooded an area where BART keeps computerized train-track switching equipment at the Daly City station, which meant trains had to be rerouted, according to a BART officials. The problem led to only slight delays at the start of the evening commute.

Staff writers Malaika Fraley, Amelia Hansen, Amy Yarbrough and Justin Jouvenal and wire services contributed to this report.

LOAD-DATE: February 26, 2004

Copyright 2004 MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers
San Mateo County Times (San Mateo, CA)
February 26, 2004 Thursday
SECTION: LOCAL & REGIONAL NEWS

LENGTH: 625 words

HEADLINE: Storms cause havoc;
STORM PUMMELS COUNTY

BYLINE: STAFF REPORTS

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