"Never seen anything like it before": Intense wind and rain knocks out trees across the region
SACRAMENTO - The wind has been uprooting some trees across our area as Tuesday brought another day of storms.
"This weather has been horrendous," said Ron Silva who lives in Sacramento. "I have never seen anything like it before in Sacramento in a long time."
The whipping wind and relentless rain caused a tree on Walegra Road in North Sacramento to topple onto a parked car.
"I am glad it did not fall on my van as I was driving around there," Silva said.
Silva lives right around the corner from the down tree. On his street, there were also many trash cans that got knocked over and even Silva's basketball hoop.
"He put a cement block on it and it still does not keep it up," Silva told CBS 13.
Other trees like one on Madison Avenue in Fair Oaks teetered back and forth for hours.
"It started real slow, and me and my buddy went out into the street and started blocking traffic," said River Basile who works in the strip mall across from the tree. "We were getting a lot of dirty looks, like 'What are you doing in the street?' And people yelling at us, but what is more important is doing the right thing and helping people."
The only thing that was holding up the tree was the utility lines that its branches were tangled in.
"Literally, the grass just started bubbling a little. It was rippling," said Basile. "It looked like water. It was weird."
The California Highway Patrol and Sacramento Metro Fire blocked off the street for several hours Tuesday afternoon. Sacramento County crews eventually came out to cut off the tangled branches.
"Coming down going 60 and that thing lands on your car, that is bad news," said Basile.
Crews were able to keep the tree from toppling onto the road.
"Soils are already saturated, and trees that have been already weakened by years of drought are easily toppled over with gusty winds," PG&E spokesman Paul Moreno told CBS13.
Moreno said so many trees are laying across roads because they are not used to all this rain. He said this is something they have to pay attention to when they are out working on lines to restore power.
Many areas are still recovering from the January storms. The City of Sacramento says it will take six months in total before the 1500 or so trees are fully cleared.
That is not including all the trees that have toppled since then.
"All these trees, a lot of them have fallen down," said Silva. "Glad we do not have one in our yard."
The City of Sacramento also has arborists that have been inspecting at-risk trees. These will also be chopped down in the next several months.