Landslide Topples PG&E Truck Down Rain-Soaked Aptos Hillside

APTOS (CBS SF) -- A rain-soaked hillside gave way early Friday in Aptos, washing out a road and sending a PG&E truck tumbling about 150 feet down the slope amid rocks, dirt and debris.

The California Highway Patrol was notified of the incident on Valencia School Road at about 12:41 a.m.

A PG&E worker was inside the vehicle at the time of the slide. He suffered minor neck and back injuries, according to the CHP. The worker was in the neighborhood trying to restore powe

The watery onslaught overwhelmed an area of the 300 block of Valencia School Road in the Santa Cruz Mountain foothills above Aptos. Video showed mud, boulders and a tree caught up in the slide. A home's balcony also was damage. The CHP has now blocked off Valencia School Road.

According to the National Weather Service, nearly 6 inches of rain fell in Aptos over a 48-hour period as a potent winter storm fueled by an atmospheric river pounding the area with steady rain.

KPIX 5 Weather Center: Current Conditions, Maps, Forecasts For Your Area

Across the San Francisco Bay Area, crews were poised to begin the clean-up process after the potent winter storm moved south. The Santa Cruz Mountains were the hardest hit by the weather since it arrived on Tuesday night.

The weather service said in a 48-hour period that ended at 4:18 p.m. Thursday, one measuring station in Santa Cruz registered nearly 9 inches of rain, Los Gatos got 8.60 inches, Felton 8 inches, Boulder Creek 7.28 inches and Ben Lomond nearly 7 inches.

There were additional intense downpours overnight.

Elsewhere, the powerful winds destroyed a Contra Costa County marina, leaving residents cleaning up the debris at the Bethel Island Harbor.

It was a close call for people living on nearby boats just east of Antioch. What was once a marina is now a pile of wreckage. But Harbor Master Curtis Gee and his team say that have not lost faith.

More than a hundred feet of covered dock was thrown into the air as gale force winds ripped through the New Life Marina on Bethel Island Wednesday. Tamsen Meierdierck was sound asleep inside her 1963 Chris Craft while the docks around her disintegrated.

"I'm on a solid wood boat that is 70 plus years old! I'm in the safest place I could be? I didn't hear this," said Meierdierck. "It didn't seem anything like that. It was raining really hard. I couldn't see anything."

In the darkness, rain and wind, she was stuck until help arrived. Soon the Harbor Master Gee and sheriff's deputies came to help. Gee described making his way to the boat in the darkness.

"The wind was so loud you couldn't hear yourself think! I mean, it was raining sideways," said Gee. "Blowing so hard, every gust you had to find something to grab onto or lean into it, because you were going to fall over!"

Meierdierck's boat was pulling away from what was left of the dock when they finally got her off the vessel.

"We're safe and everybody else is safe and we're grateful for everything that the New Life Marina has done for us," she said.

To the south in Carmel, residents will be cleaning up in the Carmel Lagoon area Friday after a rain-swollen river spilled into the neighborhood, flooding multiple homes.

About a dozen residences were damaged, with some of the houses getting as much as a foot or two of water inside.

While the flood waters receded within a few hours, on Thursday evening residents were trying to dry out and assess the damage after being inundated by floodwaters from the nearby oceanside lagoon.

A flood warning had been issued earlier, but at 10 a.m. Thursday morning, the Monterey County Sheriff's Office ordered mandatory evacuations for residents in the Carmel River Lagoon area, including all roads south of Santa Lucia Avenue and Mission Fields.

County officials told residents to leave the area immediately.

"Homes are being flooded as Carmel River flow backs up at the Carmel Lagoon near Carmel River State Beach," officials said.

"She says, 'There's two men at the front door and they want us to get in a boat and go to safety,'" explained resident John Hammerland, describing being woken by wife Thursday morning as rapidly rising floodwaters threatened their house.

Hammerland told KPIX 5 the floodwaters had climbed his driveway and crept into the garage and were coming perilously close to the house itself.

"It came within six or seven inches of this here -- our deck, our house," say Hammerland.

Luckily, Hammerland says the floodwaters began to recede before they reached the inside of his home of 38 years.