The atmospheric river that swept through the Bay Area on Sunday caused widespread flooding and took down trees. Oakland received more than 4.5″ of rain from the storm with the hills receiving closer to 7″, according to the National Weather Service. San Francisco also set a new record for its wettest-ever October day with 4.02 inches of rain, according to the SF Chronicle.
According to Piedmont’s Director of Public Works Daniel Gonzales, the city worked in advance of the storm to head off potential problems. “We only lost two small publicly owned/maintained trees,” he said in an email, “and the cleaning of the trash racks in advance of the storm appears to have prevented the worst of the flooding. We also did have crews working all weekend to keep creeks and drainage structures free of debris.” The workers in the pictures are contract staff that supplemented the public works crew this weekend.
A worker clears debris to allow the water to flow 
Workers clear the area that runs under the pathway 
Water was flowing after Sunday’s storm 
A downed tree on Piedmont Court
Tree through a fence on Dudley 
(Dudley photos taken by MB Russell)
An image from the Oakland Fire Department’s Instagram page showed cars trapped in “the big dip” on Shepherd Canyon Road:
This article was updated on Oct. 26 to incorporate comments from Piedmont’s Dept. of Public Works
An interesting stress test of Piedmont’s storm water system – solid 24 hours of rain. Climate change will bring more intense storms but based on this recent event, storm water system seemed like it’s in good shape.
Once the city’s sewer system replacement program is complete, City staff has alluded to a storm water system repair program. How necessary is that? Given the city’s need for facility maintenance and suggestions to implement a carbon tax to pay for GHG reduction, could half of the sewer tax be repurposed to theses pressing needs? CO2 presents more of a problem than storm water.