San Francisco Trying To Keep Up With Damage From December Downpours
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) — As the Bay Are gets a break Saturday from rainy weather, the city of San Francisco is getting a better picture of the damage done during December's downpours.
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San Francisco Trying To Keep Up With Damage From December Downpours
San Francisco just isn't used to this much rain wreaking havoc all across the city.
"The problems are downed trees and tree limbs, localized flooding, clogged sewers we get. There's a lot of issues that happen when the rain comes down so we've been quite busy in the last few weeks," Rachel Gordon from the Department of Public Works said.
She said that over 60 trees—of all shapes and sizes— have fallen. There have been loose rocks and mudslides on Telegraph Hill, Twin Peaks and Bayshore Boulevard.
There has also been flooding in low lying areas all over the city.
"We gave out close to 14,000 sandbags since the beginning of the month. At one point, we were giving out 200 sandbags in a ten minute period," Gordon said—that's new city record.
While the costs to the city haven't been added up yet, public works cleanup crews have been working in 12-hour shifts with arborists and the operations center on duty around the clock to answer all the calls for help.
San Francisco is only about a half-inch of rain away from breaking a record set back in December of 1889.
This has been the seventh wettest December on record with just over 11.50 inches of rain—just short of 1.25 inches fell yesterday.
With just on-half inch more, the city's rainfall total would be over 12.03 inches that fell during this month 125 years ago.
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