Over 100 Fallen Trees Reported In San Ramon; No Injuries, Outages

SAN RAMON, CA — San Ramon is recovering from a windstorm that brought gusts of up to 50 miles swirling through the city. Streets, Drainage and Lighting Program Manager Darin Fitzpatrick estimated that over 100 trees were uprooted during the winds. Trees fell all over the city, but the area around Dougherty Valley on the east side was the hardest hit area, he said.

Ryan Mahoney of the San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District told Patch that the department received 50 calls in five hours related to the wind starting at 11:24 a.m. Tuesday. “We mainly had power lines down, trees blocking roadways and trees falling onto a few structures,” he said. No wind-related injuries have been reported in San Ramon, according to Fitzpatrick.

City crews, including additional personnel from a private contractor, worked until about 9 p.m. Tuesday to clear fallen trees from the streets, according to Fitzpatrick. However, he estimates that it will take until likely Friday to clear all the debris scattered across the city’s public property.

Southbound Camino Ramon along the 2000 block closed midday Tuesday, when winds were at their strongest, due to a fallen tree, but reopened at 2:25 p.m., according to the San Ramon Police Department. As of Wednesday morning, no public roadways in the city are closed.

San Ramon was also spared from the mass power outages that affected its neighbors. Over 2500 PG&E customers in Danville were without power throughout Tuesday and into Wednesday. As of 10 a.m. Wednesday, there were 22,965 Contra Costa County customers without power, and 49,272 whose power was restored, making it one of the hardest hit counties in the PG&E service area.

During the peak of the storm mid-day Tuesday, 300,00 customers across the Bay Area lost power. Over 160,000 PG&E customers are still without power mid-morning Wednesday, according to several reports.

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Large outages were also reported in Pleasanton (6,200 at its height Tuesday), and Livermore (3,328). Power is mostly restored to Livermore as of Wednesday, but at least 3,534 customers in Pleasanton are still without power as of Monday at 1 p.m.

Around 10 SRVUSD schools in Danville lost power at some point during Tuesday, and as of Wednesday morning, Rancho Romero Elementary School and Charlotte Wood Elementary School are still without power. School remained open during the outages (where power was restored fairly quickly, according to district spokesperson Ilana Samuels), and school remains open Wednesday, even at the schools without power. Trees fell in front of some SRVUSD schools, including John Baldwin Elementary School in Danville, causing some damage to buildings and fencing, but no injuries were reported, Samuels said.

Some of the most intense damage came in Livermore, where a tree crashed through an apartment building, damaged a water tower, and fell on almost every other block, as one resident reported. In Pleasanton, a tree fell on top of a portion of the Lighthouse Baptist Church, but no one was injured.