Wind brings down Modesto-area trees but leaves power mostly on. Wind to ease up Wednesday

Strong winds and higher gusts messed with Modesto and surrounding areas Monday but did not bring widespread power outages.

The National Weather Service forecast a less windy Tuesday but still warned of gusts up to 38 miles per hour through the evening. By Wednesday, forecasters said, the winds are expected to die down to gusts of only 5 to 7 mph.

Among the trees blown down Monday afternoon were ones large enough to block traffic lanes on Rumble Road both east and west of Carver Road.

On the east side, the westbound lane was blocked by a live tree too large to shove or pull out of the way manually. Drivers took turns waiting for vehicles — including a couple of Modesto Area Express buses creeping oh so slowly — to pass through the space between parked cars and the tree.

On the other side of Carver, neighbors and passersby weren’t about to let a dead tree snarl traffic any longer than necessary. Teen friends Bethanie Beard and Ivy Mayberry were in a home across the street when they heard the loud boom of the falling tree about 2:15 p.m., they said.

About 3:45, they still were working to clear it, along with John Roesner, who was walking his dog home from a park when he saw the tree. He returned with a hand saw and got to work cutting branches and moving them to the side of the road.

The girls said a couple of drivers already had tried to move the tree. The driver of a car got it to move a bit by backing into it, and another man tried pulling it by tying a rope to the rear of his pickup truck.

The Modesto and Turlock irrigation districts reported scattered outages Monday in their electricity services areas.

TID restored power to about 1,220 customers during the day, spokeswoman Constance Anderson said by email. It was still dealing as of 8 p.m. with an outage affecting about 55 in Ceres. Tuesday afternoon, there were no reported outages.

“Outages are not uncommon during wind events like we are seeing today, and we are thankful for our crews – both in the field and in our Power Control Center – who are ready to respond as this weather continues,” Anderson said.

This story was originally published October 12, 2021 at 5:00 AM.