What to Do After a Major Storm
The short version
- If you smell gas, leave the building first and call 911 from outside. A downed line or an injury is a 911 call too. None of the three waits.
- Treat every downed or sagging power line as live, even one that looks dead. Stay far back.
- The ground can keep sliding for days after the rain stops. Watch for fresh cracks and leaning trees, and be ready to leave.
- Photograph damage before you clean up or make repairs, and keep receipts for emergency work, for insurance.
- Check on older neighbors, anyone on medical power equipment, and people who live alone.
Printable version: the winter storm and outage checklist covers both halves, getting ready beforehand and checking your place afterward, on one sheet.
The quiet after a big storm feels like the all-clear, and it isn't. A lot of the damage, and a lot of the injuries, land after the weather clears. Downed lines are still live, saturated ground keeps sliding for days, weakened trees keep falling, and hidden damage shows up when you go looking. Here's how to check your place and your neighbors safely once the worst has passed. If you smell gas, get outside first and call 911 from a safe distance. A downed line or an injury is a 911 call too.
First, the dangerous stuff
- Downed power lines. Treat every downed or sagging line as live and dangerous, even if it looks dead. Stay far back, keep others and pets away, call 911 first, then report it to PG&E at 1-800-743-5000. Never try to move a line or a tree that's touching one.
- Gas smell. If you smell gas, don't flip switches, use a phone, or light anything. Leave the building, then call 911 from a safe distance, and your gas provider after that.
- Unstable trees and limbs. Storms leave "widowmakers," hanging limbs and leaning trees that come down later. Look up before you work under trees, and be cautious around any that shifted.
- Water safety. If your power was out, well pumps and treatment may have been affected. If you lost pressure, your well flooded, or you suspect contamination, use bottled water and follow what your water provider or County Environmental Health tells you. Boil only when officials advise it for germs, because boiling does not remove chemicals.
Check your property
- Walk the drainage again. Culverts and ditches often clog mid-storm. Re-clear them, safely and never in moving water, so the next system doesn't back up. See our culverts and drainage guide.
- Look for erosion and slumping. Fresh cracks in the ground, tilting fences or trees, or soil pulling away from foundations are warning signs. There's more on those in winter landslide warning signs.
- Check the roof and structure from the ground for damage, and the crawlspace or garage for water intrusion.
- Food safety. If the fridge was off for hours, when in doubt, throw it out.
Document and report
- Photograph damage before you clean up or make temporary repairs, for insurance. Keep receipts for emergency work.
- Report road hazards like washouts, slides, and downed trees blocking county roads to Santa Cruz County Public Works, whose 24-hour road dispatch is (831) 477-3999. Report state-highway hazards through Caltrans or 911 if it's dangerous.
- Report a still-out outage to PG&E so it's on their map.
Remember the risk isn't over
Ground saturated by a big storm can keep sliding for days after the rain, and back-to-back systems are common here. Keep watching the forecast, stay ready to leave if a slide threatens your home, and don't assume the danger passed with the clouds.
There is a number behind that. After the destructive 1982 storms, researchers working in these mountains established that once about ten inches of rain has accumulated over a season, storm rainfall of as little as a fifth to two fifths of an inch an hour was enough to set off widespread shallow landsliding. The California Geological Survey's Boulder Creek post-fire study cites that threshold, and it describes how this terrain behaves generally, not only in the years after a fire. Its four-level rainfall matrix, though, was written in November 2020 for the emergency years right after the CZU fire, and that acute debris-flow window runs two to five years. Read the matrix as history; the rainfall science around it has not expired. For anything current, go to the National Weather Service and the county.
The same study looked at nineteen years of readings from the Ben Lomond weather station and found the valley crosses that combination often: an average of thirteen over-threshold events a year. So the answer to whether a slide can happen after the rain stops is not merely yes. It is that in a wet year the conditions for one arrive routinely, and the ten-inch mark is roughly when the hillsides start keeping score.
Check on neighbors
Mountain living runs on this. Look in on older neighbors, anyone who depends on power for medical equipment, and folks who live alone, especially after an outage. A quick knock can catch a problem before it becomes an emergency.
Frequently asked questions
What's the biggest danger after a storm?
Downed power lines are among the most dangerous, because they stay live. Stay far back, keep everyone away, and report them to PG&E and 911. Gas leaks, unstable trees, damaged structures, floodwater, and saturated ground all deserve the same caution.
Can landslides happen after the rain stops?
Yes. Saturated ground can keep moving for days after a storm. Watch for fresh cracks, tilting trees or fences, and slumping soil, and be ready to leave if your home is threatened.
How do I report storm damage to a road?
Report county-road hazards to Santa Cruz County Public Works at (831) 477-3999, and dangerous state-highway hazards via Caltrans or 911. Photograph your own property damage before cleanup for insurance.
The one thing worth repeating: if you smell gas, get outside before you call, and a downed line or an injury is a 911 call too. To report or track an outage, use PG&E. For current road, weather, and outage conditions across the valley, keep Mountain Status open, and see the Residents guide for county contacts and emergency resources in one place. Once the water has gone down, our rain tracker shows how much the storm dropped and where that leaves the season.
