Atmospheric river storm drenches SLO County for third day in a row. Here’s the latest

The third day of an atmospheric river storm dawned with a break in the heavy rain and damaging winds that swept across San Luis Obispo County over the weekend.

The lull offered an opportunity for locals to assess and clean up the onslaught of debris and other damage left in the wake of the intense weather system.

On Sunday, winds reached speeds as high as 80 mph — the equivalent of a Category 1 hurricane — while at least one San Luis Obispo County spot saw upwards of 4 inches of rain through the weekend.

Though most of Monday morning saw blue skies, more rain and stormy weather was expected through the day and into Tuesday.

According to the National Weather Service, rainfall totals of 3 to 6 inches were expected across the Central Coast during the storm, with 6 to 12 inches likely across south and southwest facing foothills and mountains.

Rainfall rates of 0.5 to 1 inch per hour were expected during the peak of the event on Monday, the National Weather Service said.

A flood watch remained in effect for the entire county as of Monday morning. It was set to expire Tuesday afternoon.

4,600 in SLO County without power day after atmospheric river pummels Central Coast

Update, 3:16 p.m.:

The number of people without power in San Luis Obispo County nearly doubled Monday afternoon, as PG&E worked to address 200 outages across the area.

PG&E spokesperson Carina Corral said 4,600 customers were without electricity as of 2:30 p.m.

“The challenging areas are below the Grade in areas such as Cambria, San Luis Obispo, Arroyo Grande and Grover Beach where the vegetation is thick with trees,” she told The Tribune. “Our crews are working tirelessly to restore power to all affected customers.”

According to PG&E’s outage report map, a pair of larger outages were impacting several hundred customers on Monday afternoon, as well as a slew of smaller ones throughout county.

In Arroyo Grande, 558 customers had been without electricity since 10:33 a.m. The outage was impacting customers in the residential area around Oak Park Boulevard.

Just to the south, 225 customers in the Halcyon Road area were still without electricity more than 30 hours after a large eucalyptus tree knocked down power lines and prompted a shelter in place order in the area on Sunday.

Power is expected to be restored to those customers by 10 p.m., according to PG&E’s outage map.

“This was one of the top three most damaging, single-day storms on record for PG&E,” Corral said. “Since Sunday, crews have restored 765,000 customers service area wide.”

Original story:

Thousands still without power in SLO County

A day after widespread storm-caused outages left nearly 40,000 customers without power throughout San Luis Obispo County, several thousand people still didn’t have electricity as of Monday morning.

According to the San Luis Obispo County Office of Emergency Services, approximately 2,000 PG&E customers were without power as of 9:30 a.m.

“If you are one of those customers, they are working quickly towards restoration,” the office said in a post on X.

The largest of the outages impacted 558 customers in Arroyo Grande as of Monday at noon, according to PG&E’s outage map.

In Oceano, 225 customers were still without power, according to PG&E. Electricity there was expected to be restored by 10 p.m.

SLO County reservoir spills, another close

At least one San Luis Obispo County reservoir began spilling on Monday morning following the overnight drenching — and another seemed close to doing so as well.

Santa Margarita Lake (also known as the Salinas Reservoir) reached 100% capacity just after 8:30 a.m., according to San Luis Obispo County Public Works Department data. As of 1 p.m., it was at 100.7% capacity.

The North County reservoir overflowed into the Salinas River last winter as well.

Lopez Lake in the South County, meanwhile, was sitting at 98.7% of capacity as of Monday morning. It jumped from 97.5% on Friday.

SLO airport loses power during storm, flights delayed and canceled

The San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport lost power during the storm Sunday, but travelers didn’t have to worry about delays because of that — the airport was running on its generators, Deputy Director Courtney Pene said Sunday night.

“The terminal is open and fully operational,” she said.

Pene encouraged passengers to check directly with their air carriers before going to the airport for travel during this week’s storm, however.

On Sunday, several flights scheduled to arrive at and depart from the San Luis Obispo airport that day were canceled or delayed, according to the airport’s website — likely due to the inclement weather across the West Coast.

A slew of flights scheduled to depart from the airport on Monday morning were also listed as canceled on Sunday night, though mid-afternoon flights appeared to be running as usual as of Monday at noon.

The canceled morning flights included the 6 a.m. routes to Los Angeles and Phoenix and the 8:40 a.m. route to Las Vegas.

Boats beached after high swells snap anchor chains

Two southern San Luis Obispo County beaches closed Sunday afternoon due to dangerous conditions, the San Luis Obispo County Office of Emergency Services said on X.

Fisherman’s Beach and Olde Port Beach at Port San Luis Harbor were both closed “due to hazardous surf, rising tide and boats on the beach.”

People were asked to stay away from the beaches until further notice.

Three boats were still on the beach Monday morning, victims of the high swell that snapped their chains during Sunday’s storm.

Numerous dog walkers and other people were down on Fisherman’s Beach on Monday to view two of the beached boats, despite the red tape blocking stairway entrances to the stretches of sand.

Person rescued from submerged car near Nipomo

Cal Fire and other emergency units responded to reports of a vehicle submerged in water between Nipomo and Guadalupe on Sunday afternoon.

The call for a water rescue at Guadalupe Road and Division Street came in at 3:49 p.m., according to emergency response app, PulsePoint.

According to emergency scanner traffic, one person was trapped in the stuck vehicle. The person was not injured, according to scanner traffic.

The person was safely removed from the vehicle by 4:15 p.m.

State of emergency declared in San Luis Obispo County

Gov. Gavin Newsom proclaimed a state of emergency for Southern California counties, including San Luis Obispo County, amid the damaging weekend storm on Sunday.

According to the proclamation, the storm was expected to last for several days, “threatening life and safety, public and private property and structures and other critical infrastructure.”

The declaration will help to speed up emergency response and funding to address the ongoing storm damage.