After Storm Floods Parts of North Bay, There’s Little Time to Prepare for More Rain

Updated 1:16 p.m. Wednesday

The Russian River and other North Bay waterways have reached flood stages after Tuesday’s atmospheric river-fueled storm, prompting evacuation orders and threatening many low-lying areas of Sonoma County.

Although Wednesday will bring a break from the rain, the rivers have been swollen after hours of downpour. According to the National Weather Service, another wave of showers on Thursday could worsen the flooding and mudslide risk as days of wet weather wear on.

“Today is a lull or a break in the rainfall,” said Crystal Oudit, a meteorologist with the weather service’s Bay Area office. “The concern is that Thursday going into Friday, we’re going to get another push for rain, and because the soil’s already saturated, that can increase the risk of floods again.”

As of Wednesday morning, the Russian River at Guerneville had reached moderate flood levels, cresting at just over 36 feet around 8 a.m. It is expected to recede out of flood stage by the evening, but Oudit said a flood warning will remain in effect until Thursday morning.

Flood risk spurred evacuations of many trailer park communities along the banks of the lower Russian River near Guerneville and Healdsburg on Tuesday night. Sonoma County Supervisor Lynda Hopkins said the trailer parks and some apartments on both sides of the river around the unincorporated community can flood when the river hits 32 to 34 feet and was caught somewhat off guard by the evacuation order.

She said historically, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration overestimates flood risk and then reduces down, but has done the opposite before Sonoma’s last few major storms.

“That was, unfortunately, what happened yesterday was what [was expected to be] barely a flood actually wound up being a moderate flood stage for us in the lower Russian River,” she told KQED.

Steve Osborne, who lives off of residential Drake Road in Guerneville, said that even though houses in his area aren’t taking on water, they have been trapped by floodwaters since late Tuesday afternoon.

He said that when there’s a storm, it’s not uncommon for everyone who lives along the dead-end residential street, which has about a dozen offshoots, to get stuck because of an especially low spot as the road hits the on-ramp to the bridge that crosses the Russian River. It was sitting in about four feet of water midday Wednesday.

“This is the only road out from all of the homes out here,” Osborne told KQED. He said that there isn’t much he thinks can be done to alleviate the issue, since it would require a lot of real estate and expensive renovation to lift the low-lying part of the road enough to avoid flood risk.

“Even when Guerneville itself isn’t impacted, this road will close because [it’s] at such a low point,” he said.

Osborne expects the flooding to go down enough to cross the road by Wednesday night, but if there are any showers in the afternoon, it could mean at least another day of being flooded in.

Creeks throughout central Sonoma County also reached moderate flood levels early Wednesday. Green Valley Creek at Martinelli Road and Colgan Creek near Sebastopol are both expected to follow a similar receding trend as the Russian River, but the risk remains high at Mark West Creek near Mirabel Heights, which is projected to crest above major flood levels. It had reached 65 feet as of 7:45 a.m., according to NWS observations.

In Napa, flood risk downtown at the Napa River was downgraded Wednesday morning after an earlier forecast projected major flooding risk. It hovered around 23.5 feet.

The flood gates on McKinstry Street near downtown’s Oxbow Market were closed by the Napa County Flood District and the city on Tuesday.

County spokesperson Linda Weinreich said that street teams were assessing mudslides that began overnight near Moore Creek Park in St. Helena and on Redwood Road near Oak Knoll and were trying to clear downed trees while there’s a break in the rain.

Since the forecast “shows that the rains are returning tomorrow — things, of course, could change — but it’s a good time to get sandbags,” she said. “And we want people also to sign up for emergency notifications.”

The return of rain on Thursday could bring downtown 1.5 inches more rainfall to Sonoma and Napa counties, according to Oudit. Gusty winds could knock down more trees and power lines, and more showers could exacerbate current road flooding and ponding near buildings.

“The challenge is that there’s not enough time to actually do anything,” Hopkins said. “I think that we’re all going to be waiting on pins and needles to see if that damage spreads.”

Resources for Sonoma County evacuees and people who experienced flooding will be available at the West County Services Center, known to locals as the Bank of America building in downtown Guerneville, in the coming days.

After the storm clears later this week, Hopkins said the county will look at how to better prepare for future storms. Her office has been working on safety and evacuation procedures with parks, trying to secure contracts with towing companies ahead of time, and looking for ways to give people longer warning windows.

The Forestville Youth Park, where many evacuees fled Tuesday, quickly reached capacity, so the county also opened its Guerneville park-and-ride for trailers. Hopkins said during greater floods, though, that location would be underwater.

“We also have to be careful if suddenly flood estimates are jumping up by a number of feet, then we run the risk of putting people in a place that could actually flood as well,” she said.

Mudslides, like a large one that damaged roads and carried an unoccupied home into the river in Forestville on Tuesday afternoon, are more challenging to prepare for.

“The reality is that we have a lot of homes that were built along old logging roads on extraordinarily steep slopes right next to the Russian River, which is one of the most powerful, sort of flashiest rivers,” Hopkins said. “When all of that water starts coming down, it can rise very, very quickly and have a tremendous amount of force. There’s not a whole lot that we can do.”

Hopkins said efforts will also shift to assessing damage and beginning eexpensive repairs — like to a road that fell into the Russian River during Tuesday’s mudslide — that need to be done before fire season in the spring.

“Those are critical evacuation routes during fire season and those kinds of projects — that kind of permitting — takes a really long time to actually get through,” she told KQED. “One of our biggest challenges is how can we deal with the flood damage in time to prepare for a wildfire season?”