After two years of damage and flooding in some areas, the first local rain storm had folks on alert. Photo by Dean Sullivan
The season’s first sizable rainstorm brought over 1.5 inches of rain to Morro Bay, kicking off a pretty good start to the rainy season, and the town’s normally troublesome areas fared well — so far, so good.
City Maintenance Division Manager, Carlos Mendoza, said they got a nice steady soaking with the storm that blew through Nov. 23-26.
It was, “Just the way we like it,” he said of the 1.5-inches that were recorded at the Harbor Street Fire Station.
None of the normal trouble spots — like the Main Street and Morro Creek area — flooded. And the town’s numerous storm drains stayed pretty clear.
They did have one tree topple over, but it didn’t cause any major damage.
At the Harbor Department, where they were waiting in anticipation of the City Manager’s announcement of a new Harbor Vitality Director hire, didn’t have any emergencies on the water to report.
While a significant amount of rain fell, the storm didn’t pack much of a punch in so far as wind was concerned. It’s high winds that wreak havoc on the bay.
Harbor Patrol officers normally run checks of the moored boats in the harbor before, during and after storms, and should one break loose, they are the ones who respond first to secure it.
The Fire Department too had a relatively quiet time with no major accidents or emergencies to report. They recorded 0.4” overnight Monday-Tuesday and had gotten 1.1” over the weekend.
Los Osos too appears to have weathered this first big storm well. A spokeswoman at the Community Services District said they hadn’t any big emergencies to report. She also said they got 0.5” from Monday-Tuesday and have gotten 2.4” so far this season, as recorded by the County.
We were unable to reach anyone at the Los Osos Fire Department, but the CSD spokeswoman said she didn’t have anything major to report.
As for the water supply, Whale Rock Reservoir, which is the main water source for Cayucos and feeds water to the Whale Rock Commission partners — Cal Poly, City of San Luis Obispo, CMC, and County facilities in Chorro Valley — was at a fairly high level for this early in the rainy season.
Whale Rock’s water level was at 86.01% capacity, according to the County’s reservoir tracker (see: www.slocity.org/government/department-directory/utilities-department/water/water-sources/whale-rock-reservoir).
Whale Rock holds 38,996 acre-feet of storage, at a maximum 218-foot depth.
At 86% capacity, the reservoir east of Cayucos currently has 34,686 a.f. in storage and is 208-feet deep.
The circa-1961 earthen dam reservoir regularly gets close but doesn’t reach overflow levels, however, the past few wet years, the water has poured over the spillway down into Old Creek below, and then emptied onto 24th Street Beach.
When Whale Rock is full it can hold about 3-year’s worth of water supply for the subscribers.
Mendoza reminds EBN readers that the City has a sand pile available on Atascadero Road across from the City Corp Yard. Sandbags are available for purchase at Miner’s Hardware. Residents can help themselves to the sand and Mendoza said they might put another pile of sand down at the Library parking lot, if needed.
The Los Osos Fire Station on Bayview Heights Drive usually has sand available as well, but we were unable to confirm this before deadline.
The rain also triggered a warning from the County Public Health Department “advising the public to avoid ocean water contact during, and at least three days following, significant rainstorms—such as the recent storm,” reads the notice from Liberty Amundson of County Environmental Health.
“Rainstorm runoff is known to transport high levels of disease-causing organisms such as bacteria, viruses and protozoa from the watershed and urban areas to the ocean. Such organisms carried into the ocean can cause skin, respiratory, and intestinal problems.
“Young children, older adults, and people with compromised immune systems are especially vulnerable to these waterborne pathogens.”
She advised surfers and swimmers to avoid contact with the ocean water during storms and for three days afterwards, no matter how alluring the storm surf becomes.
Freshwater streams — creeks, rivers and storm drains — should also be avoided until the runoff clears out.
Normally, it’s the first big flush of rain that washes down the streets and into storm drains, carrying off whatever germs, pollutants and litter that it can from roadways.
For more information about beach water quality, see the website at: www.SurfSafeSLO.org, or call the Ocean Water Monitoring Program Telephone Hotline at (805) 788-3411. And emergency information is also available online from the County, see: ReadySLO.org.
And in the Estero Bay Area and Paso Robles, community radio station, 97.3 FM The Rock (107.9 FM in Paso Robles), is an Emergency Broadcasting station and a source of information available with power outages.
A nice rainstorm before Thanksgiving is unusual for the Central Coast, which usually sees significant rain hold off until January, with the heaviest rainstorms traditionally arriving in late-February into March.
Normal annual rainfall in Morro Bay is about 16”, and a little more in Los Osos, which depends on the rain to replenish its drinking water aquifer.
