The flood of 2005
2006-01-01 18:59:33.910562+00 by
Dan Lyke
6 comments
In answer to all the questions on various voice-mails: Yes, we survived just fine, a leak in the laundry shed and a door blown off another shed was all the damage we took. Neighbors were not so lucky, one got flooded, and I was out cleaning up the gutters on the road (which we'd had a big neighborhood pull-together to get patched this fall), heard a crack, looked downhill to see a big tree limb come down just in time to break the windshield and take the mirror off another neighbor's car. I finally got to meet them, though, we've been playing phone tag for a while.
We were going to go into the city to catch a matinee, but southbound 101 was flooded at Sausalito and we realized that we weren't going to make it, so we got lunch fixings and hung out at Jeanne![[Wiki]](/adbanners/lookingglass.png)
's in the afternoon, then helped out another friend whose daughter was throwing a large party at the community center, and ushered in the New Year at another friend's.
Apparently San Anselmo took it in the teeth, I hope that this didn't get the folks at San Anselmo Coffee Roasters or Whyte's Booksmith too hard. Michael, owner of the latter, is about to move to Hawaii, and it'd suck if he decided that it wasn't worth keeping the business and San Anselmo ended up losing a bookstore for another day spa or doggie wash.
And MarkV is stuck in Truckee waiting for I-80 to open.
[ related topics:
Dan's Life Bay Area San Anselmo Whyte's Booksmith
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comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):
#Comment Re: made: 2006-01-01 19:47:53.027561+00 by:
Dan Lyke
While the devastation up in Napa and Sonoma is widespread, it sounds like Dori & Tom came through it okay.
Fairfax had at least one house slide off a hill.
#Comment Re: made: 2006-01-02 08:09:51.444742+00 by:
mvandewettering
I'm no longer stuck in Truckee, managed to get out in time today, although the winds and rain were brutal outside of Sacramento. It also appears that one of my neighbors had a bit of a mudslide, so I'll be inspecting the culverts on my property tomorrow at sunrise.
Bleh. Weather sucks.
#Comment Re: made: 2006-01-02 10:05:37.743188+00 by:
meuon
Sean, Lia and Elijiah (3 months) are visiting from Vallejo.. They've been concerned but also glad they aren't there during the mess. Lia works for PG&E and says the crews she supports aren't real happy she's been on vacation. Glad to hear ya'll are OK.
Is anyone buying land in low spots any more?
#Comment Re: made: 2006-01-02 16:35:57.703431+00 by:
Dan Lyke
Well, ya either got the hilltops (we stopped at a friend's place that's on the very crest over in Woodacre yesterday to make sure that they hadn't had any trees blown over on 'em), the hillsides, or the flat lands... And since this hasn't happened since sometime in the '80s, I think it was '82, at least in my locale.
#Comment Re: made: 2006-01-02 19:20:01.16393+00 by:
Diane Reese
We arrived home last night from our 10-day cross-country family visit to find a tree down in our side yard (luckily it fell away from the house and not towards the new window in the garage), pool overflowing but not endangering the house yet, no power around the outside of the house (but the inside power stayed on), and no phone service (earliest repair appt. is *Friday* -- but our DSL works fine, hmm). We flew in to San Jose on Sun. evening which apparently was the best plan in terms of time and location for the past week, but took a very interesting route into the airport from Dallas. Older Son and I were convinced the pilots had forgotten and were taking us to SFO instead, until we executed a wide sweeping clockwise circle over the Bay and fed into SJC from the north.
We had this kind of rain in the '97-'98 winter, I think, but not these kinds of winds. Weather: can't live with it, can't live without it.
#Comment Re: made: 2006-01-02 21:56:20.385197+00 by:
Dan Lyke
I think '98 was the year of the big floods in the central valley, and there were several houses falling off of the hillsides here in Marin, but that was more because of the 50-60 days of straight rain (no kidding, we blew past the biblical 40 days, ca;lled it kind of a milestone, but then it kept coming) rather than one big storm.
I dropped in to San Anselmo today... Brian at San Anselmo Coffee Roasters said "we will survive", not "we survived", as they've still got a lot ahead of them. They were serving coffee out the window, but the shop is still closed. I know that Steve who runs Gunning's Hobbies has been threatening to close down his retail presence for quite a while (most of his business is collectibles on the net), I wonder if this will be the trigger. Walked by Whyte's Booksmith, it looks like they managed to get most of their stock up high on the shelves, but they were doing a lot of cleaning off fixtures (and Michael had mentioned them being through a flood once before).
Didn't talk to many people, though, I was kind of hoping that a visit would be a "hey, I'm still here to support your businesses", instead I felt like I'd just be interrupting the hard work. I tried to get a picture that showed the level of the creek, with the trash in the trees ten feet or so above the current high water (and that mark above the bridge and surrounding road), but I couldn't find the angle that'd give the impact I felt. This was one huge flood. And we're still looking at one more high tide, peaking just about now closer to the Golden Gate Bridge, another hour or two further up the bay.
Traffic westbound on Sir Francis Drake was held up because part of that road is being used as a staging area for small dumptrucks to drop material that's being transferred into large semi-trailers, and said semi-trailer gondolas were very apparent in Fairfax and San Anselmo.