The rain at my house began Sunday morning and ended about mid-day Tuesday. The heaviest rain occurred on Monday, which was also a fairly windy day. By evening the rain tapered off a bit, but the wind picked up. This is what caused most of the damage and problems in San Luis Obispo Co. The highest local gust was measured at 72 mph! At my house, the wind blew from 30 to 50 mph for many hours, including a steady supply of stronger gusts (some over 60 mph). Naturally, any dead wood in the trees was all blown out of them (a cleansing process). Unfortunately, the winds lasted long enough to also clean out a lot of other things, including large branches (and in some cases whole trees!) which wreaked havoc with the local power grid.
We lost power just after 11 PM Monday night, having it restored about 8 AM Tues. morning. Sally had to take a shower and get ready for work using a camping lantern to see. The power outages across the county of 250,000 people were very scattered, leaving 50,000 in the dark at some point during the storm. By Tues. evening, there were still 16,000 people without power.
The small park in downtown Templeton had three large Oaks topple in the storm. All 3 had trunk diameters of around two feet. Because of the abundant rain we have had this winter, and the rain of the previous 24 hours, the ground was completely saturated. Wet soil is much weaker than dry soil (lower shear strength) and could not support the weight of the trees being shifted by the force of the wind. The same situation happened with a 40 foot Eucalyptus tree along our driveway. This tree did not fall; however, it is leaning at a most precarious angle and I fear it may have to come down. (I will try and post a photo of it soon).
One concern I had during the storm was the fate of the birds and other creatures who live in the trees. We have had 3 Peacocks living near by and I believe they spend the nights in a tree for safety. I was happy to see them all foraging in a field near my driveway the day after the storms fury had peaked.
Many local school districts were closed on Tuesday due to lack of power and difficulty for the buses to safely navigate the streets cluttered with debris and water. Several homes and cars were damaged by falling trees, and several boats were grounded or sunk by high seas and wind.
Today, Feb. 4, was very nice, partly cloudy, temp reached 62, a good day to clean up the debris.