Jeff Pelline's Sierra Foothills Report

Highway 20 has reopened but with chain controls, according to a report from the California Highway Patrol at 5:28 p.m. Meanwhile, here’s a sampling of reports from this blog’s readers:

•Nevada City: Several inches of snow and lots of downed trees and limbs. No AT&T cell phone service part of the day, but it was restored later. One resident told me PG&E reported he might not get his power restored for another day because of downed lines.

•Greenhorn & Brunswick outside of Grass Valley: “No power here since last night. From eyeballing it on my bird feeder I’d guess about 15 in of snow here so far.”

•Center of the Arts. Lost power on the last song of the night of Saturday’s performance.

•Lake of the Pines: “Moderate wind and rain (for a major storm) and no snow. Power has remained on, but since this is PG&E, that’s subject to change.”

•North San Juan: “We got about 4 inches last night, but then back to rain. Lost power for a couple of hours, generator work’s fine.”

The latest from the PG&E outage report:

Nevada City: 14 outage(s) affecting 500 to 4999 customer(s)
Grass Valley: 14 outage(s) affecting 500 to 4999 customer(s)
Alta Sierra: 10 outage(s) affecting 1 to 49 customer(s)

There is no estimate on when power might be restored.

The latest updates are here.

Thanks to the crews of PG&E, AT&T, the city and county all all the rest for their efforts.

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Editor’s note: RL Crabb posted this sad news here this afternoon:

“Mama Su Morgan DeCorte passed away at 3:30 pm at Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital in Grass Valley. She had recently been transferred there from UC Davis, after a series of operations to remove cancerous tumors.

“Locals will remember Su’ s restaurant, the Squeeze Inn on South Pine St., where she served up some of the best Mexican food on the planet. After the Squeeze closed, Su moved to Utah to care for her mother.

“After her mother’s passing, she returned to her Yuba River cabin and gold mining claim near Washington, and a few years later, she married Hank DeCorte and together they restored the historical Washington Hotel.

“Not many people knew this, but Su was also the voice of Suzy Creamcheese on The Mother’s of Invention album, Absoluely Free. She was a dear friend, and her passing will leave a huge gaping hole in the little town of Washington, and Nevada County.”

Thank you RL.

BTW, I found this mention of Mama Su Morgan DeCorte and mysterious guests appearing at the Washington Hotel in the Sacramento Bee, originally published on Oct. 31 1999. It is here.

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The first snow storm of the season is wreaking havoc in the foothills, leading to power outages, stalled vehicles and closed roads.

Trees fell down, blocking streets and littering the road with branches. Trees fell on houses in Nevada City, according to readers here. As much as 18 inches of snow was reported on Banner Mountain.

All of Northern California was battered. In San Francisco, we heard lightning strike the Bay Bridge on Saturday, a eerie sight and sound. The thunder clap was enormous. The photo topped the nightly newscast. It is here.

PG&E reports outages in Nevada City, Grass Valley, Alta Sierra and throughout the foothills, affecting thousands of customers. The outage map is here.

“SR 20 is closed from Nevada City to the junction of I-80 due to fallen trees and snow,” according to the Caltrans report on Sunday morning. Chains are required on the mountain roads that are open. A CalTrans road report is here.

“SNOWING HARD!!,” wrote one reader here on Saturday night. “In Cypress Hill we have over five inches and it keeps coming down. We just saw two blue/white flashes in the sky, a sure sign the electrical grid is starting to take some hits with snow laden branches shorting across multiy phase power lines.”

The California Highway Patrol incident report shows a number of vehicle traffic hazards, including stranded vehicles and ones that are blocking snow removal equipment. The report is here.

Fallen trees included a 40-foot pine tree that fell from our front yard into the street in Nevada City. The street was closed Saturday morning while PG&E and AT&T crews cut it lose from the lines. Our home insurer is on it.

We stuck with our plans and headed to San Francisco in the afternoon. But you could not escape the storm: The lightning strike on the Bay Bridge was bizarre. It was not far from our hotel in the Financial District.

There was an upside though: Lunch at Perry’s in the Marina (watching Stanford crush Cal) and dinner at Sam’s Grill for fresh seafood.

We are coming home between storms. Be careful out there.

Share your snow storm stories here. (The best reports are coming from “citizen journalists” here. So far, there has been no real-time reporting on the local media websites).

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