bay area weather

Storm cleanup continues across the Bay Area

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The rain and damaging winds are gone, but the problems are not.

Tens of thousands of Bay Area residents were still without power Tuesday and many more were still cleaning up.

PG&E crews have been working nonstop since the storm hit. In terms of outages, the utility said Sunday was among the top three most damaging single day storms on record.

It was all hands on deck at the Boys & Girls Club of St. Helena and Calistoga Tuesday after a redwood tree fell onto the club Sunday evening, smashing through the roof of the homework lab and games room and breaking the sprinkler lines.

"The whole club flooded and it was soaked all the way through the gym," Trent Yaconelli said.

Tens of thousands of people across the Bay Area are still without power as PG&E crews continue to repair power lines damaged by the storms that tore through the region over the past few days. Thom Jensen was in the North Bay where nearly 20,000 customers are still in the dark.

Across the North Bay, the strong winds toppled hundreds of trees, including one that fell on the historic building that houses Farmstead Restaurant’s general store and tasting room in St. Helena.

Many are using generators to power their necessities. Some people have been without electricity for nearly three days.

Linnea Pearson said she broke down and booked a hotel Monday so she could shower.

"We went down to Napa and stayed at a hotel overnight just so we could get hot water and charge our phones and eat some food that wasn’t cold," she said.

Some Napa Valley wineries were also in the dark. Operations have come to a standstill at the Spring Mountain Vineyard in the hills of St. Helena.

Spring Mountain Vineyard assistant winemaker Ian Shetler said all his big equipment needs power to operate.

"I am sort of chomping at the bit to just get my facility up and running to actually do meaningful stuff," he said. "It’s a little bit of thumb twiddling and waiting for answers."

At the Boys & Girls Club, the staff is determined to keep the program running. They’ll move kids into the cafeteria until the main building is repaired.

"We are determined to keep the kids entertained, having fun and enjoying their lives," Yaconelli said. "Things happen. Things always happen around us and we just gotta meet the need that we see in front of us."

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