Latest Storm System Brought Rain, Powerful Wind, Outages

8:15 a.m.: Strong gusty winds gave Sacramento Municipal Utility District line workers a challenge this weekend.

The storm system Sunday dropped about .5 inch of rain across the Sacramento Valley and brought winds 40 to 60 miles per hour.

"So it did cause some havoc for our infrastructure," says Capra. "But with the crews being ready and everything else, like we always are, we prepare for these storms days in advance."

Chris Capra is with SMUD. He says about 39,000 people went without power Sunday, including 30,000 in the Carmichael and Arden Arcade areas.

Capra says that SMUD customers had their power restored by early Sunday evening. The Sacramento region is expected to see another storm arrive next weekend.

Original Post: The storm system over the weekend brought plenty of wind and rain to the Sacramento Valley. The region saw about .5 inch of rain. The system's low-pressure gradient brought gusts of wind from 40 to 60 miles per hour in some spots.

Chris Capra is with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. He says about 30,000 people lost power in the Arden Arcade and Carmichael areas, plus another 9,000 across the county, at the peak of the storm outage.

"They were either knocked out because the wind's so strong or because a tree branch or a limb goes into them," he says. "We also had some trees fall into lines throughout the service territory. We had a couple of pole incidents also, where we had to replace poles."

Capra says SMUD customers had their power restored by early Sunday evening. The Sacramento region should stay mostly dry this week until another expected storm arrives on the weekend.

-Capital Public Radio Staff