Dave Alley
SANTA MARIA, Calif. (KEYT) – Despite receiving an unseasonably large amount of rain over the past four days, the City of Santa Maria experienced only a few minor impacts during the recent rain storms.
“Things are looking good,” said Brett Fulgoni, Santa Maria Public Works Director. “It was definitely a good sized storm. We’ve had a lot of rain over the weekend, but things are holding up. In general, we’re looking pretty good.”
As of 8:00 a.m. Monday, Santa Barbara County reported Santa Maria had received 3.65 inches of rain over the past four days, which did not include the heavy amount of rain that fell throughout much of Monday morning.
“The latest totals I saw, and these will go up, puts us about 460% of average today,” said Fulgoni. “This has got to be one of wettest Novembers that we’ve had. It’d be interesting to see the data on that.”
As the rain fell throughout most of Monday morning, Santa Maria workers were active responding to storm-related issues.
“The rain, it’s been steady,” said Julian Ruiz, Santa Maria Public Works Street Supervisor. “We have a crews out there patrolling, making sure everything’s safe and the roads are safe. We have some potholes all over the streets so we are pot hole patrolling. We’re also making sure there’s no standing water on the roads.”
Black Road, on the far western edge of the city, was closed for a time as typically happens during times of heavy rain.
By Monday afternoon, the busy roadway that connects Highway 166/West Main Street to the north and West Betteravia Road to the south was open to through traffic.
Other issues that cropped up were relatively minor, including a clogged storm drain on South Bradley Road, near In-N-Out Burger.
“We’ve had typical localized flooding where the drainage inlets are getting flooded, things like that,” said Fulgoni. “We’re starting to see our basins fill up in the area because of the prolonged period of rain and so that’s something that we’re keeping an eye on with Flood Control.”
While the amount of rain that fell over the city since Friday caught some by surprise, Fulgoni was breathing a sigh of relief the rain began to taper off early Monday afternoon.”
“The good news is that was spread out over a few days,” said Fulgoni. “If we had another couple inches on the heels of this storm, we would be looking at some more serious impacts.”
One impact that will be felt for a few days is the immediate closure of two of the city’s most popular and busiest recreational areas: Crossroads Basin and Adam Basin.
The two parks are active daily hosting mostly soccer players of all ages, who use the grassy areas for practices and games.
However, both facilities double as basins and collect massive amounts of water that runs out from storm drains and spills onto the fields during times of heavy rain.
“It’ll take a few days for the water to flow out of those basins, but they are doing exactly what they’re designed to do, and that is to control the flows of water from the east side of Santa Maria out to the river,” said Alex Posada, Santa Maria Recreation and Parks Director. “The rain is great to have and it helps us out in our parks. This will help our parks turn green again.”
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