COUNTY PREPARES FOR BIG STORM/ HWY 76 MAY BE CLOSED

The Roadrunner received the following bulletin from Sheriff's Lt. Sean Gerrity Friday:

Based upon weather predictions for tomorrow's storm event, the County Office of Emergency Services will be staffing their Emergency Operations Center tomorrow evening through at least Sunday noon (depending on the weather and its impact). I will be opening the Poomacha Burn Area command post no later than 6:00 PM tomorrow night, here at the Valley Center Sheriff's Substation (yes, another weekend away from home - sigh).

This afternoon, my deputies delivered the attached warnings to the 100 or so homes we believe to be at highest risk in the area (Note: I removed the County and Sheriff seals from these copies, otherwise you'd be getting an 8MB e-mail).

As in the past, the Highway 76 corridor between Lake Henshaw and Valley Center Road will be at highest risk, with debris flow potential at about 16 different points along this portion of Highway 76. If it becomes necessary to close this portion of the road, Palomar Mountain residents and business employees will be allowed access via East Grade Road, via Highway 76 at Lake Henshaw once again. They will be allowed through at the Lake Henshaw resort checkpoint, but should only go to and from East Grade Road, and not any further west on Highway 76. As before, Nate Harrison Grade is not suggested, and likely would be unsafe. Residents and business employees should not access Highway 76 via South Grade Road during such closure, as the risk of large and potentially lethal debris flows (including, after they have happened, crashing into them or losing vehicle control because of them) is simply too high.

CalTrans will have crews patrolling Highway 76 through the night (they have actually been out there all week), and County Roads will also be out.

For Palomar Mountain, this next storm set is expected to pull in warmer moisture from the more subtropical regions of the Pacific, raising the snow level to above 7,000 feet. It is expected to melt and "wash away" the snow on Palomar Mountain tomorrow night. Rain levels may reach between 4" to 8" on Palomar Mountain during this storm, with the most significant rain potentially occurring between tomorrow night at midnight and 4:00 AM Sunday morning, perhaps at a rate of about 1" per hour (or more) at times.

Enjoy the snow while you can...

Lt. Gerrity

CORRECTION:

The quote we have in our Web news article posted yesterday is not quite correct. We thought we were quoting Chief George Lucia as being the one who hiked into the canyons of the La Jolla Reservation to look at possible debris flows. It was actually
George Wilkins, who is a private hydrologist currently working for the La Jolla Band of Mission Indians, and also working with the the BAER Team (Burn Area Emergency Response Team), which is comprised of many different government agencies including the USGS. George Wilkins went up in the helicopter with Lt. Gerrity, and he is the one who has hiked some of the canyons to get a closer look.