Please note that this very successful event, Dec 15-20, 2002, has been completed.

For those that may have been out of town, a severe storm packing 50 mph winds in San Jose thoroughly tested the spirits of the Fasters during the entire 5 days of the fast. Even the last day of the fast, the very heavy rain continued. On Friday, 12/20/02 at 4am, I recorded the following "Sound of Heavy Rain" in Santa Clara, just north of San Jose (mp3 file, 1 min, 7 seconds, 198 KB).

FIVE DAY FAST TO LET IRAQ LIVE

Heavy Storm Leaves Toll; More Rain on the Way

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/2002/12/17/news/local/4756798.htm

Posted on Tue, Dec. 17, 2002

Heavy storm leaves toll; more rain on the way
By Frank Sweeney and David L. Beck
Mercury News

With another strong storm headed for the Bay Area later this week, utility crews and other workers scrambled to repair the damage from the powerful winds and rain that slammed into the Bay Area in the pre-dawn hours Monday.

The second in a long parade of storms marching across the Pacific clobbered the region with high winds and drenching rain, pounded the coast with towering waves, and knocked out power to tens of thousands of homes and businesses in the Bay Area. One woman died in what appeared to be a storm-related traffic accident in Mountain View.

Pacific Gas & Electric crews working around the clock had restored power to all but 37,000 customers in the Bay Area by late Monday. PG&E spokesman Jeff Smith said that crews were giving some priority to restoring electricity to those who had been without it the longest and that most customers should have power back today.

That's just in time for the next strong storm, which is expected to arrive Thursday and last through the weekend. Forecasters said they expect relatively light showers today and Wednesday.

The latest storm hit hard. When the storm blasted San Jose with high winds after 9:30 p.m. Sunday, Susan Fernandes thought it was an earthquake shaking her home in the Santa Teresa neighborhood.

``The floor just vibrated, and the walls vibrated,'' she said. ``I've lived here most of my life, and I've been through so many earthquakes.'' But experiencing her two-story house shaking in the high winds, she said, ``was really strange.''

Strong winds continued to follow the storm's path. Forecaster Bob Benjamin at the National Weather Service office in Monterey said a 91-mph gust north of Mount Diablo in Contra Costa County was the strongest wind recorded around the region Monday. San Francisco International Airport recorded a 61-mph gust. Mineta San Jose International Airport's peak gust of 50 mph occurred hours before the front passed, he said.

Benjamin said the jet stream -- the high-speed river of air in the upper atmosphere that guides storms around the globe, ``is pretty much on a due west-to-east trajectory straight
across the central Pacific.'' As a result, storms are focused directly on California.

By late Monday, about 6,900 homes and businesses were still without power in the South Bay, and an additional 18,700 were off-line in the Santa Cruz Mountains and coastal areas,
Smith said. Areas of Campbell and Los Gatos were among the neighborhoods without electricity.

The causes: wind, trees and saturated ground, Smith said. Trees toppled onto power lines, knocking down poles and cutting service. ``The areas hit hardest are heavily wooded,'' Smith said.

Since the series of storms began on Friday, 896,147 Bay Area homes and businesses were blacked out at one time or another, he said.

SBC Pacific Bell officials reported scattered telephone outages throughout the Bay Area, primarily because water got into phone cables. ``It's not rare during these storms. We have to locate and dry them out,'' said SBC spokesman Fletcher Cook.

He said the largest outage affected about 200 customers in West San Jose. Although 39 central switching offices throughout the Bay Area lost electrical power in the storm, backup generators kept them in service, Cook said.

Those affected said the loss of service was a headache. ``At least when the power goes out, the utility bill goes down,'' said Kathryn Barnard, who practices law from her Redwood City home. ``But when the phone goes down, you use the cell phone and your bill goes up.''

In the Santa Cruz Mountains, power outages closed several schools, and the torrential rains sent mud sliding down hillsides. Mountain residents who had just finished mopping up after Saturday's storm found themselves once again pulling out chain saws, shovels and picks to clear land and roadways.

In Felton Grove, the rising San Lorenzo River threatened a Sylvan Way neighborhood. Beth Godbey and her neighbor Riley McNaught tried to get out with their dogs as floodwaters rose.

McNaught was halted by the current and was forced to climb out of the car with her two Labrador retrievers and trudge back to her house. Her car was filled with mud, and her house had a flooded basement.

Godbey experienced an even closer call. The high water killed her truck's engine. She crawled out of the vehicle into chest-high water with one dog; a firefighter rescued the other dog. But her house, raised so that floodwaters coursed through her garage, had little damage.

Despite the huge, picturesque waves that battered the Santa Cruz shore, surfers generally stayed away, said state lifeguard Danielle Pajer. She blamed a south wind, which made the swells broken and choppy, unsuitable for surfing.

Chief city lifeguard John Alexiou said people along West Cliff in Santa Cruz ``are really staying back from all the fences,'' as foam splashed on the far side of the street.

On the Peninsula, police and fire units rushed from downed wire to toppled tree without much of a break. Minor floods and car accidents were reported virtually everywhere.

A Caltrans crew working along Highway 85 in Mountain View discovered the body of 48-year-old Sherry Olearczuk of Los Gatos. Her car was found off the road early Monday afternoon smashed by a fallen tree.

After a windy weekend, portable basketball hoops and plastic Santas laid on their sides on many a front lawn.

``From midnight until 4 a.m. it was just horrid,'' said Betty Newcome, from Martin Lane in Woodside, where clogged drains at one point caused water on the street to rise nearly to the sidewalk.

Some of the heaviest rain this winter fell overnight. San Jose measured 1.05 inches in the 24 hours ending at 4 p.m. Monday, according to the National Weather Service, pushing the season's total to 4.99 inches -- 127 percent of normal. Morgan Hill got the most rain in the South Bay -- 2.75 inches. In the North Bay, flooding threatened the town of Napa and communities along the Russian River.

The high winds knocked over countless fences throughout the region, triggering a surge of calls to repair companies.

``It's non-stop. We're booked into next week,'' said Aurora Lopez, secretary at Bay Area Fence and Deck in San Jose. ``We got dozens of calls just this morning. Everybody is saying, `My fence fell down; I need someone to come out.''

But the weather didn't deter holiday shoppers from their wish lists as retailers reported strong foot traffic in malls and shopping districts over the weekend.

Although there were reports of electricity and phone service out near some malls, stores, including Macy's, said the outages did not affect business. Even at outdoor malls such as Stanford Shopping Center and Santana Row, shoppers sloshed through puddles to shop.

``Our valet parking was busy over the weekend, and the rain didn't stop people from walking from Valley Fair,'' said Tom Miles, general manager of Santana Row.

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Mercury News Staff Writers Sean Webby, Truong Phuoc Khanh,
Nicole C. Wong, Donna Kato and Maya Suraryaman contributed
to this report. Contact Frank Sweeney at fsweeney@sjmercury.com
or (408) 920-5675.