Advises residents how to stay safe, offers list of free sandbag locations

By Kelly Kalfsbeek, Community & Media Relations Coordinator, CCC Public Works

Contra Costa County Public Works maintenance crews have been clearing storm drains, catch basins, roadside ditches, monitoring and maintaining flood control channels and stocking sandbag stations in preparation of the coming storms. We encourage our customers to take steps to protect themselves and their property as well.

Please clear drains/gutters, watch for fallen/falling trees/limbs and other debris and look for trouble spots. If you are concerned about flooding visit: www.contracosta.ca.gov/sandbags to find your nearest sandbag station. Sand and sandbags are free, please bring a shovel.

During stormy weather, we encourage the driving public to avoid traveling on the roadways unless necessary due to localized flooding, downed trees, and hazardous situations. Do not attempt to cross flooded roads and if the power is out, treat all traffic signals like stop signs. We also advise residents to stay out of the creeks and flood control channels.

For road closure updates & other important information follow us on Twitter @cccpublicworks: https://twitter.com/cccpublicworks

For winter storm preparedness tips & resources-including flood forecasting tools visit: www.contracosta.ca.gov/stormprep

To report a service issue such as a clogged catch basin or drainage inlet, in unincorporated Contra Costa County, please call the Public Works Maintenance Division at 925-313-7000 during work hours and after hours call Sheriff’s Dispatch at 925-646-2441. To learn how you can report service issues to us from your mobile device using our free Mobile Citizen App visit: 

www.contracosta.ca.gov/MobileCitizen

About Contra Costa County Public Works Department:

Contra Costa County Public Works Department (CCCPWD) maintains over 660 miles of roads, 150 miles of streams, channels, and other drainage and over 150 County buildings throughout Contra Costa County. CCCPWD provides services such as Parks and Recreation, Sandbag Distribution and Flood Control throughout unincorporated areas of Contra Costa County.  CCCPWD operates two airports, Buchanan Field Airport in Concord, and Byron Airport in Byron. For more information about CCCPWD, please visit us at: www.cccpublicworks.org

 

Power restored to 817,000 customers since Sunday

PG&E wants to provide you with an update on our efforts to restore power to our customers following this weekend’s potent atmospheric river storm.

• From the arrival of this storm in the early morning of Sunday, Oct. 24, to 6:30 p.m. today (Wednesday, Oct. 27), we have restored 817,000 customerswho experienced weather-related outages. For perspective, PG&E has 5.5 million electric customers.
• As of 6:30 a.m.today (Wednesday, Oct. 27), about 1,100 PG&E customers are experiencing weather-related outages due to wind, rain and snow.
• Nearly 99% of all customers impacted by this historic storm have been restored.
• In terms of where the remaining outages exist, the top three counties still feeling storm impacts are:

Contra Costa = 120

San Mateo = 443

Santa Clara = 288

• This has been an all-hands-on-deck storm response by PG&E, with more than 3,000 electric workers and tree workerson the ground assessing damage, making repairs and restoring customers. Hundreds of more PG&E employees are staffing emergency centers and performing other jobs related to the storm response.
• We continue to provide estimated restoration times to customers.

 

100’s of electric and tree crews, 1,000’s of employees and contractors assessing damage, making repairs and restoring power safely and as quickly as possible

Strongest storm to hit the area in more than a decade begins to move out of southern portion of PG&E’s service area

“gusts…exceeded 70 mph across Contra Costa”

Since Saturday, crews have restored nearly 580,000 customers impacted by the early-season storm

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s (PG&E) Emergency Operations Center and hundreds of crews continue assessing damage, making needed repairs and restoring power in the aftermath of a major atmospheric river storm that delivered damaging winds, record rain totals, flooding and debris flows over the course of the weekend and Monday. The storm was one of the most potent to hit Northern and Central California in over a decade.

Since the storm began early Sunday, approximately 630,000 customers lost power which is about 10% of the utility’s 5.5 million electric customers.

As of 5 p.m. Monday evening, power has been restored to approximately 92% or 580,000 of those customers. Approximately 50,000 customers remain impacted.

PG&E continues to respond with approximately 3,000 electric and tree personnel on the job, including distribution and transmission line crews and troublemen and women, who are the utility industry’s first responders to an outage. Hundreds more employees are staffing the storm centers, performing safety duties, delivering needed equipment to PG&E yards and more.

While crews were pre-positioned to be in key locations in advance of the storm, they are now being moved and redeployed to the hardest areas of damage such as Sonoma, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties which were ground zero for much of the damage.

Mutual Aid assistance crews from San Diego Gas & Electric are expected to arrive Tuesday.

Record Rain and Wind

The record-breaking rain combined with strong winds produced the most storm-related impact seen in the PG&E territory in the month of October dating back to 2009. Downtown Sacramento at 5.44 inches broke a rainfall record that dated back to 1880. Blue Canyon received 10.4 inches of rainfall surpassing a record that dated back to 1964. Mount Tamalpais received 17 inches of rain. The strongest wind gust recorded was 92 mph in Alameda County. There were a number of other gusts that exceeded 70 mph across Contra Costa, Santa Clara, Marin, Plumas, Placer, San Mateo, Butte, and Napa counties.

PG&E’s stand is simple, that everyone and everything is safe. With that in mind, crews will continue to work overnight Monday and into the week until all customers are restored.

Keeping Customers Informed

While the storm has moved out of many areas, it is still impacting areas like Fresno, Bakersfield and San Luis Obispo.

PG&E knows how important it is to keep its customers informed. Customers can view real-time outage information on its website outage center and search by a specific address, by city or by county. This site has been updated to include in-language support for 16 languages.

Additionally, customers can sign up for outage notifications by text, email or phone. PG&E will inform customers about the cause of an outage, when crews are on their way, the estimated restoration time, and when power is restored.

Storm Safety Tips

• Never touch downed wires: If you see a downed power line, assume it is energized and extremely dangerous. Do not touch or try to move it—and keep children and animals away. Report downed power lines immediately by calling 9-1-1 and by calling PG&E at 1-800-743-5002.
• Avoid floodwaters that could have down wires or electrical equipment in them. If a customer’s home or business is threatened by rising waters, turn off all gas appliances, or close gas appliance valves with a one-quarter turn. If you are unable to shut gas appliances off, turn your gas service off at the meter by using a wrench or other suitable tool to give the valve a one-quarter turn in either direction until it is perpendicular to the pipe.To shut off electricity, locate the main switch at the electric panel and turning the switch off. Never touch electrical equipment with wet hands or while standing in water.  Once floodwaters recede, PG&E will restore gas and electric service to the community. When returning to their homes, customers should not attempt to turn on their gas or electricity. They should contact PG&E at 1-800-743-5000 to request that their services be restored
• Use generators safely: Customers with standby electric generators should make sure they are properly installed by a licensed electrician in a well-ventilated area. Improperly installed generators pose a significant danger to customers, as well as crews working on power lines. If using portable generators, be sure they are in a well-ventilated area.
• Use flashlights, not candles: During a power outage, use battery-operated flashlights, and not candles, due to the risk of fire. And keep extra batteries on hand. If you must use candles, please keep them away from drapes, lampshades, animals, and small children. Do not leave candles unattended.
• Have a backup phone: If you have a telephone system that requires electricity to work, such as a cordless phone or answering machine, plan to have a standard telephone or cellular phone ready as a backup. Having a portable charging device helps to keep your cell phone running.
• Have fresh drinking water, ice: Freeze plastic containers filled with water to make blocks of ice that can be placed in your refrigerator/freezer during an outage to prevent foods from spoiling. Blue Ice from your picnic cooler also works well in the freezer.
• Secure outdoor furniture: Deck furniture, lightweight yard structures and decorative lawn items should be secured as they can be blown by high winds and damage overhead power lines and property.
• Turn off appliances: If you experience an outage, unplug, or turn off all electrical appliances to avoid overloading circuits and to prevent fire hazards when power is restored. Simply leave a single lamp on to alert you when power returns. Turn your appliances back on one at a time when conditions return to normal.
• Safely clean up: After the storm has passed, be sure to safely clean up. Never touch downed wires and always call 8-1-1 or visit 811express.com at least two full business days before digging to have all underground utilities safely marked.

Other tips can be found at www.pge.com/beprepared.

About PG&E

PG&E, a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG), is a combined natural gas and electric utility serving more than 16 million people across 70,000 square miles in Northern and Central California. For more information, visit pge.com and pge.com/news.

 

March 6, 2019, Martinez, CA – Contra Costa County Public Works is addressing road shoulder embankment failures due to previous years of winter storms.  Some failures have occurred along Alhambra Valley Road, Bear Creek Road, Marsh Creek Road, Happy Valley Road, Carquinez Scenic Drive, among others.

Temporary measures have been implemented to keep the motoring public safe while the roads remain open to traffic.  In some cases, temporary concrete barriers have been placed, along with temporary stop signs, to reduce the road to a single lane at the location of the road failure.

Public Works is actively designing a permanent fix to these road failures as well as securing funds to seek environmental clearances and construct the necessary fixes.  In some cases, federal and state emergency funds are sought to recover from winter storms declared as disaster areas (as was declared in 2017).

Public Works appreciates the public’s patience as these permanent repairs are planned for and constructed.  In the meantime, we will continue to monitor the effectiveness of these temporary measures and asks the public to adhere to the temporary traffic control measures.

About Contra Costa County Public Works Department:

Contra Costa County Public Works Department (CCCPWD) maintains over 660 miles of roads, 150 miles of streams, channels and other drainage and over 200 County buildings throughout Contra Costa County. CCCPWD provides services such as Parks and Recreation, Sand Bag Distribution and Flood Control throughout unincorporated areas of Contra Costa County.  CCCPWD operates two airports, Buchanan Air Field in Concord and Byron Air Field in Byron. For more information about CCCPWD, please visit us here.