As storm hits Mountain View, flooding and downed power lines are reported

As a deluge of wind and rain hit Mountain View and surrounding communities on Wednesday evening, Jan. 4, flooding, downed power lines, outages and other disruptions were being reported. Rainfall and outages continued have continued through Thursday afternoon.

Water was filling the roadway and spilling onto the sidewalk at the intersection of Phyllis Avenue and El Camino Real, according to an image the Mountain View Police Department shared on Twitter shortly after 6 p.m. on Wednesday.

Emergency officials urge the public to stay off roads, unless travel is necessary. Anyone who is traveling should drive slowly, have their headlights and windshield wipers on, and avoid driving through standing water, police said.

According to Mountain View police, by 6:11 p.m. there were reports of wires down on the 500 block of Pettis Avenue and the 2300 block of Perich Court, as well as a possible transformer explosion and sparking wires on the 800 block of Park Drive. Police also received reports of downed trees blocking West Dana Street between View and Bush streets, near downtown Mountain View.

Emergency responders also got calls reporting wires down and sparking on the 800 block of Park Avenue and a power pole down on the 1000 block of Lane Avenue, police posted shortly after 10 p.m.

More trees also fell, including one that hit a parked car and blocked the road on the 300 block of Loreto Street and another that fell at the intersection of California Street and South Shoreline Boulevard, police said.

In the Rex Manor neighborhood in Mountain View, a power outage impacting more than 1,000 customers began around 6 p.m. Wednesday evening, according to PG&E’s outage map, with weather preliminarily determined as the cause. By the afternoon on Jan. 5 the number of affected customers had shrunk to 743, and by 7:30 p.m., the outage map showed the issue had resolved. The same neighborhood was afflicted with an outage earlier in the day on Jan. 4.

PG&E reported another outage north of El Camino Real near downtown Mountain View on Jan. 4, encompassing large portions of Old Mountain View and Shoreline West. Over 1,800 customers were initially impacted by the outage, and PG&E said weather was the cause. It has since resolved.

The outage map showed smaller pockets of power outages persisting in the downtown area throughout the day on Jan. 5, with hundreds of customers affected during the afternoon. As of 7:30 p.m., 109 customers were still without power near Vincent Drive and Anza Street, with no estimate for restoration yet. These customers have been without power for nearly 22 hours, according to the outage map.

Anyone who observes power lines that have been knocked down should not touch anything and should call 9-1-1, followed by PG&E at 800-743-5000, Mountain View police said on Twitter, and do not touch anyone who is in contact with the lines.

The storm is expected to continue through the afternoon Thursday, according to the National Weather Service. This most recent storm comes on the back of an intensely rainy weather episode over the New Year’s weekend, which didn’t cause major damage in Mountain View, although it did lead to flooding in nearby towns.

For updates on the storm, check back on the Voice’s website. Have photos of the storm? Send them to reporter Zoe Morgan at zmorgan@mv-voice.com.