Fast-moving, weakened North Bay storm traps motorist, prompts water rescue
A weaker-than-expected storm that moved through the North Bay Wednesday toppling some trees in west Sonoma County and along the coast, where nearly 1,000 customers lost power, prompted a late-evening swift water rescue near Windsor after fast-moving floodwaters trapped a motorist.
For much of the day, forecasters and emergency personnel monitoring the storm waited for it to grow in intensity. Instead, the front’s power appeared to wane even as it picked up speed, which indicated it wouldn’t hang around.
“We had a little bit of rain and wind,” said Monte Rio Fire Chief Steve Baxman, who has worked in the worst storms to batter the region over the past five decades. “I’m disappointed. They promised us a storm.”
At the National Weather Service, meteorologist Dial Hoang added, “The system is moving quite a bit faster than we had anticipated earlier in the week.”
Despite the storm’s diminished strength and increased pace, the rainfall it brought was consistent, causing slick roads and flooding in some parts of the region.
Shorty after 9 p.m., a woman had to be rescued from her SUV after she drove onto Mark West Station Road between Trenton-Healdsburg and Starr roads, outside of Windsor.
Fire officials said she called 911 after floodwaters from nearby Windsor Creek trapped her in her vehicle.
This is about a mile away from the area where, a year ago, a 43-year-old Ukiah woman died after flooding near Trenton-Healdsburg Road trapped her in her car.
Daphne Fontino had also called 911 from her vehicle, but her line was disconnected and boat and helicopter crews were unable to find her.
Fontino's body was later found inside her vehicle, about 200 yards from Mark West Creek, near Forestville.
When rescue crews responded Wednesday night, the woman’s Honda CRV was stopped in water that was 2 to 3 feet deep with a “pretty significant current flowing across the roadway,” said Sonoma County Fire District Special Operations Battalion Chief Mike Stornetta.
The Honda was about 800 feet from Starr Road and 400 feet from Trenton-Healdsburg Road, he said.
A two-lane, rural stretch of road bordered by vineyards, Mark West Station is also lined by fencing. Had the woman gotten out of her SUV on her own Wednesday night, she risked being swept into the roadside fence by the current, Stornetta said.
The rescue, called a shallow-water crossing, involved six, swift-water trained rescuers who held onto the backs of each others’ life jackets in a diamond formation. They then made their way to the woman’s vehicle.
There, they opened one of the doors of the Honda, which had remained stationary, took the woman into the center of the diamond and walked her to dry land.
By the time rescuers reached the vehicle, the water was as high as the woman’s lap. She remained on the phone with emergency dispatchers through the rescue, Stornetta said.
He added that the conditions of the rescue posed a “very significant risk to our guys and to the victim.”
“While the general public looks at that road and they say, ‘Well, there's only 2 feet, 3 feet of water, they don't realize the hydraulics behind that current and how powerful that water is,” Stornetta said.
Firefighters drove the woman in a fire engine to where someone could pick her up.
Neither the woman nor any of her rescuers were injured, Stornetta added.
Also late Wednesday, Sonoma County’s Office of Education announced the closure of the Kashia School District due to a power outage and other storm-related impacts.
The SCOE said the closure would continue through Thursday. No word on when the outage would be fixed or when the district would reopen.
Intermittent showers should continue across the North Bay through early Saturday, he said.
Another storm system was expected to roll in Sunday morning, Hoang said, with 2 to 3 inches of rain forecast for the inland valleys and 3 to 5 inches at higher elevations. That storm is is expected to taper off by Monday.
Scattered power outages were reported Wednesday, mostly in coastal areas where the winds were strongest. From Stewart’s Point to north of Sea Ranch, 952 customers lost power; it was expected to be restored by 9 p.m. Wednesday,
There were at least three crashes in Sonoma County that were, apparently, related to the weather. None of them were serious.
A three-vehicle collision on northbound Highway 101 at Railroad Avenue in Cotati sent two people to an area hospital complaining of pain. No injuries were reported from either an early afternoon rollover crash on Highway 101 in Geyserville or another rollover in Larkfield about 5 p.m.
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