CALAVERAS COUNTY, Calif. — After days of heavy snowfall up Highway 4, the little town of Arnold in Calaveras County is in the process of digging itself out and assessing the damage.
Underneath the collapsed carport, Craig Hahn’s 1957 Chevy isn’t looking so good. "The wife was afraid to tell me," Hahn said.
Up in Lilac park snow is only part of the problem at Mike Dolio’s house. Down trees litter his property. "None of it came through the roof but it hit the deck and the overhang," explained Dolio.
Tree crews and PG&E are out in full force. For days they’ve been dealing with a tangled mess of down powerlines and broken limbs blocking homeowners driveways. With multiple days of freezing and thawing the snow is really hard. The only ones making real headway on removing snow are those with tractors.
The COVID-19 stay-at-home order was lifted this weekend in Calaveras County, but the power outage is making it really difficult to fix up some lunch at Bristol’s restaurant. “It’s kind of sad but we are muddling through, but hey we are going to make it,” said Bristol's owner Patty Bristol, cooking by the light of her cell phone.
The heavy snowfall attracted lots of tourists to Calaveras Big Tree State park over the weekend. Between tourists and locals stuck in the snow first responders at Ebbets Pass fire dept. had their work cut out for them.
"We had about 20 times the amount of emergency call volume we would typically have at Ebbet’s pass," said Ebbets Pass Fire Chief Mike Johnson.
As for when all this will be cleaned up? It’s hard to say. The Arnold area has more winter weather heading their way so things could get worse before they get better.
A so-called atmospheric river storm pumped drenching rains into Southern California, while blizzard conditions buried the Sierra Nevada in snow.
