ELK GROVE, Calif. — Three weeks out from the beginning of the parade of storms that have left devastation across California, many cities are finally able to survey damage and start repairs.
Cosumnes Community Services District and Fire Department have released their totals for damage and rescue reports.
When the storms first hit on New Year’s Eve, Cosumnes Fire Department was left to deal with twice the number of emergency calls they normally get in a 48 hour period. They took 145 calls on Dec. 31 and 126 on Jan. 1.
Battalion Chief Robert Kasparian said most calls were for stranded motorists.
“We had an issue with people continuously driving through road closure signs and unfortunately if you don’t have someone physically stopping people from driving, we are going to continuously get 15 to 20 cars driving through which was the problem,” said Kasparian.
With the high number of incidents, Kasparian says they don’t have to staff to stand and watch all closed roads to prevent drivers from going around barricades.
The second set of storms yielded a similar need for service. 124 calls on Jan. 8 and 79 calls on Jan. 9. But the storms have been a valuable lesson for next time.
“Some of the equipment that we have to respond when we get significant flooding in roadways needs to be updated, I think we need to do a little more preparation I think no one was truly expecting this to be as impactful as it was,” said Kasparian.
From Jan. 1-18, Cosumnes CSD has received 183 calls to the park maintenance hotline. 160 of those calls involved down trees, and 146 requests for service have been completed.
“We here in Cosumnes and Elk Grove the Community Services District are about 90% completed with tree mitigation,” said Kasparian.
Elk Grove Park remains closed since the new year. Cosumnes CSD manages 46,000 trees in Elk Grove’s urban forest. They say 60 trees sustained serious damage 18 of them are located in the park.
