Morgan Hill public works crews responded to some fallen trees, clogged storm drains and a brief power outage due to the weekend’s series of storms, but no significant damage was reported.
By Sunday afternoon – when the rain had mostly stopped after a steady overnight downpour – the storms that started Wednesday drenched Morgan Hill with about 4.7 inches of rain, according to the National Weather Service.
No major flooding incidents were reported in downtown Morgan Hill, though city and Santa Clara Valley Water District crews prepared for such a threat by offering sandbags to residents and businesses in town.
City crews Sunday responded to reports of clogged storm drains and trees that had fallen onto roadways, blocking traffic or creating hazards, Morgan Hill Program Administrator Anthony Eulo said.
The trees reported fallen were scattered “all over town,” Eulo said.
A short power outage required city crews to turn on a generator to operate pumps that keep water from collecting on Monterey Road near Old Monterey Road during heavy rains, Eulo said.
The pumps, which are located under a railroad overpass just north of downtown Morgan Hill, were briefly inoperable during the storm Sunday and traffic was stopped while city crews got the generator running, Eulo said.
Power was restored to the area and to the pumps almost as soon as the generator was turned on, Eulo said.
City sewer crews also set up an auxiliary system at a sewer main just south of town, near Monterey Road and California Avenue, Eulo said. That area has been known to overflow with sewage during large storms, such as in October 2009 when more than seven inches of rain fell in a 24-hour period, causing sewage to flood into a nearby pumpkin patch south of town.
However, this time there was no overflow, and crews did not have to turn on the auxiliary system they set up as a precaution, Eulo said.
PG&E reported scattered power outages throughout the Bay Area over the weekend, affecting about 5,000 customers in Morgan Hill at different times, according to PG&E spokeswoman Monica Tell. The biggest local outage affected about 2,500 customers in Morgan Hill from about 9:11 a.m. to 10:37 a.m. Saturday morning. That outage was caused by a tree that fell on a power line on Monterey Road near El Toro Avenue.
Another outage lasted “about a minute” earlier Saturday and affected about 789 customers, Tell said. That outage was also caused by a fallen tree on Llagas Road.
