High winds and heavy rain Christmas Eve and into Christmas Day brought down trees, power lines, flooded roads and left thousands of North Bay residents without power for the holiday.
The storm system, the second in a row, swept across the North Bay late Wednesday into Thursday bringing periods of heavy rain, gusty winds, thunderstorms and even pockets of hail, according to National Weather Service Meteorologist Dylan Flynn.
Downed powerlines, road closures and widespread power outages across Sonoma County disrupted Christmas morning for thousands of residents.
In Sebastopol, lighting struck a giant Redwood tree, shattering it to pieces just feet in front of Michael Valdovinos’ home.
Just before 8 a.m., Valdovinos said there was a loud explosion sound that shook the floors and walls of his home, prompting everyone in the home to either scream or freeze.
“It literally felt like a bomb went off,” he said.
His wife ran to the front door to find the massive redwood, which sat on their property 25 feet away from the home, splintering the tree into bits.
The explosion was caused by a lightning strike powerful enough to “pop the tree like a balloon,” Valdovinos said.
Debris littered the yard and knocked out power to their home. Debris also broke the piping to the well at the house, cutting off the water supply and throwing a wrench into their Christmas morning plans.
“Nature is absolutely incredible,” Valdovinos said. “We are still just kind of shook.”
As disruptive as the explosion was, Valdovinos said they feel lucky the home was not damaged more, adding that a massive piece of the tree missed the room where his daughter was asleep by only about an inch.
Firefighters removed debris from the roof and some off-duty firefighters even stopped by to witness the aftermath since it was such a rare occurrence, he said.
Power was eventually restored and the family was able to open presents and cook their holiday meal, but not before the delivery of a Christmas they will never forget.
By noon, nearly 14,000 PG&E customers remained without power with West County seeing the brunt of that.
Power was restored to nearly 4,000 customers by 3 p.m., leaving just under 10,000 customers still without power.
On Thursday night, a power line knocked down near Coffey Park left almost 9,000 PG&E customers in Santa Rosa without power. At 6:30 p.m., there was not estimated time for restoration, according to the PG&E outage map.
The Santa Rosa outage brought the total number of Sonoma County PG&E customers without power to more than 16,000.
Roads were closed across Sonoma County including in Forestville, Bodega Bay and Sebastopol. For a full list of closures, visit the county’s map at: roadclosures-sonomacounty.hub.arcgis.com/pages/full-listing.
In the last three days, Santa Rosa recorded 2 inches of rain, while Napa recorded nearly an inch and a half. In the coastal mountains, the weather service recorded rainfall totals of more than 5 inches, Flynn said.
Looking ahead, Flynn said the worst of the widespread, sustained wind is over but noted there is still a chance for strong or even severe thunderstorms through Friday.
Flynn said Thursday and Friday would be the “finale” of the weeklong weather.
A flood watch is in place through 10 p.m. Friday, though Flynn says the rainfall will likely not be enough to cause major flooding in creeks or the Russian River. Instead, the flood watch is primarily in effect for flash flooding which could happen in urban areas.