Alameda County firefighters keep close watch on storm hazards
Alameda County's first responders are keeping their eyes peeled in case of storm damage or flooding during a patch of bad winter weather.
One of the areas that saw the most rain over the past few days was the East Bay, where the Town of Danville as well as the cities of Dublin and San Ramon all saw more than an inch and a half of rain.
During a break in the rain on Wednesday, the firefighting crew on Truck 25 out of the Castro Valley fire station heads out to check for storm damage.
"There's certain areas that are prone to flooding and we know those areas need to be patrolled a little more heavily," says Captain David Huang. He's has been a firefighter with Alameda County for almost 20 years, and says on stormy days firefighters are generally busier than normal.
"The most common calls tend to be vehicle accidents, but we also get a lot of trees that go down, especially if it's windy," he says.
Wednesdays winds weren't strong enough winds to bring down trees, but during the heaviest rain in the morning, a charter bus rear ended up a truck carrying a load of dirt on 580 eastbound near Foothill Boulevard in Pleasanton. It caused traffic to back up for miles most of the day.
In other parts of Alameda County, more than 40 employees from Public Works were out patrolling the roadways looking for any problems.
"Rockslides or any slipouts that may have occurred that haven't been reported to us yet, and also any drainage inlets that may have been clogged from runoff coming down," says Brent Kelley, who manages maintenance and operations for flood control and roads in Alameda County.
While there are no reports of severe impacts from this recent line of storms, there are still sandbag stations available to all county residents.
"You only want to fill it up to about a third of the bag width because you want to be able to fold it over and lay the next one on top of it, so you want to leave yourself some room to be able to do that," says Kelley.
There are 7 different sand bag stations across Alameda County. You can find more information here: https://permits.acgov.org/pwa/info/sandbag.htm
