No power, no heat: For these Russian River residents, blackout is biggest hardship

MONTE RIO — The receding waters of the lower Russian River offered only partial consolation Tuesday to those who are still without electricity here.

It’s been a week since intense winds and torrential rain brought down trees and toppled power lines, casting thousands of households across western Sonoma County into darkness.

While many of those customers have had their power restored, for many others, the wait goes on.

To the flood-hardened residents in communities like Monte Rio, Guerneville and Rio Nido, that has been the biggest hardship — enduring day after day without electricity, poor cell service, cold baths and no heat.

Sugaree Abrams, 27, of Monte Rio said she’s never had to weather both flood and a blackout for such a long period of time. She said the semi-rural block where she and her partner, Jon Barackman, live has been without power since last Wednesday.

“I’ve lived out here my whole life, but honestly I’ve never been without power,” she said. “To have it off for so long, you ask yourself ‘Is anyone really doing anything? Are there boots on the ground?’”

On Tuesday, the two visited the community support center in Guerneville, where they received blankets, portable phone charging banks, water snacks and freeze-dried meal packs.

Abrams and Barackman said they have a gas oven fueled by propane, but they’ve been unable to use it because the controls are electronic.

They’ve been relying on a portable, propane-fueled heater to stay warm.

Everything in their refrigerator has spoiled by this point, so they have been living on cans of soup. “Anything you don’t have to refrigerate,” Abrams said.

“I just feel like dead in the water, just staying afloat,” said.

It was unclear Tuesday exactly how many people along the river and in the surrounding Sonoma Coast hills remained without power.

Wind gusts in those hills hit as high as 88 mph in the Jan. 4 storm, leaving a sprawling mess for fire, road and utility crews to navigate in the days since, even as rain poured down.

On the Sonoma Coast, around Stewarts Point and The Sea Ranch and across the county line into Gualala, up to 1,000 customers — meaning about 2,000 or more people — remained without power Tuesday afternoon.

Closer to the Russian River, Pacific Gas & Electric’s outage maps showed numerous pockets with anywhere from a handful of customers to more than a hundred households without power.

For many, the wait for electricity could extend into next week, according to officials.

“It’s crazy to me that it’s 2023 and some west county residents may be facing multiple weeks of power outage,” county Supervisor Lynda Hopkins said Monday. “It’s rather stunning to see how fragile our electrical grid is in western Sonoma County.”

On Moscow Road in Monte Rio, Tim Cahn and his husband Minh Ta have been living in relative dark since last Wednesday.

The westbound lane of Moscow Road, just east of their home, was destroyed by a curbside redwood tree that gave way into the river during one of the recent storms. Similarly, a section of Moscow Road just west of their home was damaged during the 2019 flood.

Cahn and Minh have lived in the house full-time since 2013. Before that, they split their time between Monte Rio and their home in Noe Valley, San Francisco. Minh, a massage therapist and artist originally from an island off the southern end of Vietnam, said he knows what it’s like to live in rustic conditions.

“I grew up in a country where there was only electricity from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., so this is bringing back those memories,” he said.

Cahn, an attorney who is also on the board of the Monte Rio Fire Protection District, said life in Monte Rio, among redwood trees, vineyards and the calm of the river, is usually a “sort of paradise.” The occasional flood, he said, is a tradeoff.

“But this atmospheric stuff, getting so much rain so quickly — that’s kind of new,” Cahn said. “Every passing year and continuing climate challenges,” he added, are making that life much harder.

In Guerneville, 37-year-old Daniel Cicchetto, who lives off Drake Road and lost power on Tuesday, said he and his neighbors have come together this past week to help each other out. Some without a generator will allow their neighbors to draw power to charge their phones or battery packs.

Cicchetto said he has a neighbor who is currently away and he’s using their generator. Many homes are vacation rentals, which means it’s often up to full-time residents to flood-proof homes and lift objects to higher ground.

“I find it warming and uplifting, neighbors coming together,” Cicchetto said.

Longtime river residents say that season of helping is likely just getting started.

Steve Baxman, Monte Rio’s veteran fire chief, spent part of Tuesday afternoon watching young firefighters conduct water rescue training on the swollen river.

Baxman said the river corridor’s peak flood period won’t wind down for months. The historic 1986 flood occurred in mid-February and the area has seen giant floods as late as April.

“This is just a warmup,” Baxman said, pointing at the brown waters rushing under the Monte Rio Bridge. “This is just high water … I’ve seen it flood four times in one season.”

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @pressreno.