A rain-soaked Middle Fork Smith River at the Nels Christensen Memorial Bridge on Sunday. | Photo by Jessica Cejnar Andrews
The atmospheric river that drenched the North Coast and Southern Oregon over the last few days dumped nearly 2 inches of rain on Jack McNamara Field between Thursday and Saturday, according to a National Weather Service meteorologist.
The bulk of the rain — about 1.57 inches — fell on Saturday, meteorologist Edward Swafford told Redwood Voice Community News on Monday.
With the ground already saturated, water runoff brought the Smith River within a half-inch of minor flood stage at the Dr. Fine Bridge on Sunday, according to the National Water Prediction Service. The NWS issued a flood warning for the area near the bridge at 8:39 a.m. Sunday, warning that flooding was likely near the quarry on South Bank Road. That flood warning was canceled at 11:55 p.m., the Del Norte Office of Emergency Services posted on Facebook.
Caltrans and the Del Norte County Roads Division placed flooding signs along Lower Lake Road and on other areas near Fort Dick, said Crescent Fire & Rescue Chief Kevin Carey, citing radio traffic he had heard over the weekend.
But, while Del Norte emergency responders did deal with arcing power poles and trees on power and communication lines, Carey said his firefighters didn’t have to deal with flooding issues “specific to our area.”
“[The] previous big weather, we had a couple of trees into houses and stuff. That was more severe because we had more sustained winds,” he said, referring to the “bomb cyclone” that blew through Crescent City on Nov. 20. “This one, we also went on a lot of power lines and communication lines. And we did [respond to] a few tree branches that damaged houses this time around.”
Del Norte County Sheriff Garrett Scott said he felt things went smoothly over the weekend, though there were a few collisions the California Highway Patrol handled. Caltrans was also busy on U.S. 199 and State Route 197, and there was minor flooding, he said, but no major damage.
Crescent City’s rainfall total for the month of December, as of 4 a.m. Monday, is 12.62 inches, Swafford told Redwood Voice. The normal amount is 10.46 inches. Last year, the area received 11.01 inches of precipitation, he said.
The meteorologist described the atmospheric river as a conveyor belt funneling moisture into the region. It’s usually Oregon and Washington that gets soaked, but this time Del Norte County got doused, Swafford said, though he noted that the King Range in Humboldt County also saw heavy rainfall.
Even during the bout of heaviest rain on Saturday, there were no reports of flooding in downtown Crescent City, City Manager Eric Wier said on Monday, adding that he checked in with Police Chief Richard Griffin. The slide-repair area on Pebble Beach Drive is also doing well, Wier said.
“On Pebble Beach, they have the wall built and some of the armoring in place, but it’s also holding up really well given the significance of the storms,” he said. “It speaks to the improvements we’ve made to have those types of storms and not have a significant impact.”
Still, power glitches and the sheer amount of rain and water overwhelmed a few of Crescent City’s sewer lift stations last weekend, Wier said. The city was fortunate that there wasn’t a significant power outage, he added.
There are 25 sewer lift stations throughout the Crescent City area, Wier said. Flows increased dramatically, he said, but there weren’t overflows at the wastewater treatment plant. Most of the challenges occurred in the Bertsch area south of town, Wier said.
Crews also worked Christmas Eve,Christmas Day and the day after on weather-related issues, the city manager said.
“They haven’t gotten much of a holiday,” he said. “On Christmas Eve, a seal broke in one of the lift stations — it was a critical lift station on Hodge — a seal and one of the pumps broke. We had to call crews and they had to deal with an issue on that night.”
Apart from infrastructure issues, Swafford said, last weekend’s atmospheric river filled up aquifers and reservoirs. Another bout of rain is expected Tuesday evening into Wednesday morning with a bit of a break on Thursday, he said.
Another soaking is expected late Thursday evening and is forecasted to get heavy this weekend, Swafford said.
“It does look like a low-end atmospheric river,” he said. “It’s more on the weak side, [but the forecast] will become more clear as things come in.”
