January 28, 2021 — People all over the county are still feeling the effects of Tuesday’s storm, which took out trees and crushed structures and cars. As of this afternoon, customers in almost every community are still without power, with Willits the hardest hit at 3,434 customers in the dark. Redwood Valley is next, with 1,728, then Laytonville and Covelo, with 1,321 and 1,256 respectively.
Most of the county roads are now open, but there are still piles of brush on the road, including branches dangling from trees and power and telecommunication lines.
A Greenfield resident reported that roads had been partially cleared, but that some houses and vehicles had been damaged. A lot of decks and outbuildings around the county have been splintered, in addition to hundreds of trees, especially madrones and oak trees that still have enough leaves to hold onto piles of snow.
Kent Standley with the Department of Transportation reported that Bell Springs Road and Spy Rock roads are still closed. Sherwood Road and the main roads in Brooktrails are open, and crews are working to clear the smaller roads in the Brooktrails subdivision.
The northern end of Tomki road is still closed, with PG&E working on downed power lines. At the bottom of the hill near the convergence of West and East Roads, there is still a slushy drift of snow and a power line draped across the right side of the road. I watched a big red pickup truck drive underneath it earlier this afternoon and continue on its way up the hill.
Nancy Jameson, in downtown Redwood Valley, lost a historic barn full of hay when trees weighted with snow came down on the structure. As we walked through her property after I drove around the valley , she pointed out piles of branches and full-grown live oak trees that had simply been uprooted, their root balls six or eight feet across.
By this afternoon, the horses seemed more or less adjusted to their pasture full of fallen trees. An Arab Tennessee Walker named Paintbrush was nibbling moss from the branches, while two other mares stood shoulder to haunch, napping on their feet.
They’re not young horses, which Jameson says is lucky, or they would have done something stupid.
Jameson and her family were able to save most of the hay, except for the bales that are still mashed directly under the tree that flattened the old barn. Two days after the storm, her huge flock of peacocks, which expanded after the 2017 fire, took shelter in another outbuilding or pecked around in the yard with a few of the chickens that ventured outside in the rain. A little blond cat and a rooster napped in another barn, and a shaggy pony, smaller than the two Pyrenees dogs, watched us calmly from the far side of his pen.
“No lost animals or injured people,” Jameson reported. “We just have a lot of work. And a lot of firewood. But we all have stoves, so it works out.”
