Updated Feb. 8
On Monday morning Mikael Gustafson and his 2-year-old Finn were standing outside their Carmichael home watching the Sacramento Municipal Utility District trucks roll down the street.
“Is that SMUD working on getting the power back on? Is that a big truck?” Gustafson asked his son.
“It’s a huge truck!” Finn answered.
While the Gustafsons didn’t lose power — the family has a 36-hour battery backup system now — the rest of the neighborhood did, part of the more than 200,000 households in SMUD’s service area that were out at some point over the past day.
A second powerful atmospheric river slammed into California Sunday, with winds upwards of 65 mph in the Sacramento Valley and above 90 mph along the central and Southern California coasts. Around the state more than 1 million households, around 2-3 million people, went without power at some point. At least four people in California have died after being hit by trees; one in Fair Oaks, one in Carmichael, one in Yuba City and a fourth in Santa Cruz.
On Monday, Sacramento area residents were surveying the damage, and around 40,000 were still waiting for the lights to come on. While less damaging than the storms that hit in January 2023, there were still numerous downed trees and power lines.
The Gustafsons were lucky. They lost a large olive tree, but it didn’t fall on their home.
Mikael Gustafson and 2-year-old Finn outside their Carmichael home Feb. 5, 2024 following a powerful atmospheric river storm the day before.Chris Nichols/CapRadio
“The last storm that we had last year was a little bit worse and because of that we lost two or three big trees,” Gustafson said. “After that storm we had to trim a lot of the trees. So this year we were a little less worried about it, but only because there were no trees that were threatening to hit the house or anything.”
Martha Cervantes also narrowly missed a tree falling on her home in downtown Sacramento, though unfortunately it struck her neighbor's home. Thankfully no one was injured.
Still, Cervantes said she wants to see the city of Sacramento be more aggressive in pruning and removing old trees. She said she and her family have lived in the home for more than 60 years, and of five walnut trees that stood nearby, only two are left after the others fell in storms over the years.
“I mean, if you're gonna cut the tree don't just trim a little branch here and there,” she said. “They hardly did anything.”
In Arden Arcade, Barb Parkison was surveying her street, where large eucalyptus trees had fallen and blocked Morse Avenue. She said it was difficult listening to the wind and rain over the course of the day and night.
“It just felt like it was never ending,” she said. “They said it was gusts up to 55 [mph], but it felt like it was continual.”
Fallen eucalyptus trees blocking Morse Avenue near Marconi Avenue in Arden Arcade on Feb. 5, 2024.Chris Nichols/CapRadio
Parkison, who has lived in the neighborhood for 21 years, couldn’t say for sure if these storms are getting more frequent, but pointed out that the impacts are more difficult to manage.
“It just seems like the damage is so, you know … It's hard,” she said.
Craig Shoemaker with the National Weather Service says the worst of the storm should be over as the winds that had gusted up to 65 miles an hour begin to diminish.
“Yeah, the strong winds are pretty much over,” Shoemaker said. “I mean, we're still getting some gusts in the 30 to 40 mph range over the northern Sacramento Valley, we're talking about up towards Redding and Red Bluff winds have already lightened up quite a bit as you head down into the southern Sacramento Valley and, and Mother Lode Foothills area where we have winds now that are generally in the 10 to 20 mile an hour range.”
A flood watch is still in effect through Tuesday as thunderstorms continue to develop.
Sacramento Regional Transit shut down its Light Rail service Sunday afternoon, citing significant damage caused by the high winds. Jessica Gonzalez with SacRT said mass outages and damages to overhead wires have continued to make trains inoperable for the time being.
“It’s not clear yet when service will be restored, but RT hopes to make progress throughout the day,” Gonzalez said. “Bus routes are still in service, and are also running along the Blue and Gold lines.”
Several schools in the region — including Sierra College and some elementary schools in the San Juan and Rocklin Unified School Districts — were forced to either cancel school altogether or release students early due to power outages. Sacramento County parks are also closed indefinitely while crews assess damages.
Storm brings heavy snow to Sierra
In the Sierra, Sunday’s storm brought both gusty winds and heavy snow, which caused significant travel issues. Chain controls were required in both directions on Interstate 80 around mountain passes for most of Sunday and into Monday morning.
Officials with the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab estimate over 20 inches of snow fell between Saturday and Monday morning.
“It’s certainly not something you want to be caught out in,” Andrew Schwartz, the lead scientist and manager at the snow lab, told CapRadio’s Vicki Gonzalez. “On Donner Summit we get a lot of fog that rolls in because the clouds kind of come up to the top of the road here. Lots of snow, like I said, lots of wind yesterday evening … this all comes together to just make it really inhospitable.”
But all that snow may be promising for California’s snowpack, which has been below average so far this rainy season.
Just last week, scientists recorded the snowpack at 52% of what’s average for early February. But now, Schwartz estimates the snowpack is closer to 72% of what’s average.
“We're getting back on track, but we really need to make sure that the snow doesn't stop coming in because at this point in time, we're getting a lot closer to being average,” Schwartz said. “But if it ends and we go into a drier period then we'll start falling behind again, and that's something that we don't want. But so far, we're making up for that slow start and that's a great thing.”
Correction: A previous version of this story misspelled Barb Parkison's name. It has been corrected.
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