Blustery Winds Batter Entire Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) – The windy weather on Monday was making a mess around the Bay Area, toppling trees over into streets and onto cars.
The wind was also strong enough to bring down trees in Santa Cruz. One fell onto a car, smashing the windows.
The wind also caused some damage in San Francisco. A traffic light went down near a construction site on Van Ness Avenue and Hayes Street.
The wind is blowing hard throughout the Bay Area, but in Fremont, it was especially strong.
By the afternoon, Fremont Police had responded to nearly 20 calls for wind-related incidents. Many trees have come down in the strong wind and several streets are effected.
Mike Valencia saw one tree go down.
"I just came into work today to do couple errands and the next thing I know, the tree was in the middle of the street," Valencia said.
After the first tree came down, his office mates took action.
"Everybody over here moved to the back, because we're afraid these trees are going to fall," said Valencia.
In Niles Community Park, an 80-foot pine tree blew over, smashing into a car. No one was injured, but police secured the area because several large broken branches are stuck in an adjoining tree and could fall out, hurting someone.
In downtown Niles, Tom Smyth was surprised by the winds strength.
"I was dodging branches falling off trees earlier but, thank God, I didn't have to wear my hard hat," said Smyth.
One officer predicted there would be several more tree coming down over the course of the evening.
There were also scattered wind-related power outages, including one in Vallejo affecting over 5,000 customers.
The CHP issued a wind advisory for those driving on all Bay Area bridges on New Year's Eve with heavy winds projected into the evening.