The Santa Clara Valley Water District is well prepared for this week’s heavy rains. As of Thursday morning, stream flows throughout the county have been well below the creek capacities. While unanticipated stream or storm drain blockages could always cause localized flooding during a rainstorm, we do not currently anticipate any creek flooding issues.
Santa Clara Valley Water District crews have worked all year to prepare our creeks for storms such as this. We are dedicated to keeping residents and businesses safe through our flood protection programs.
In preparation for this series of storms, all five of our sandbag sites have been fully stocked. In addition, cities around the county operate an additional 18 sandbag sites.
Our maintenance staff stands ready with heavy equipment to respond to reports of downed trees or large debris flows in locations where we have property rights. We are monitoring streams for blockages at key bridges and culverts. We need the public’s help as our eyes and ears to alert us to obstructions in the creeks and to prevent flooding. To report issues in creeks, residents can call 408-630-2378 or submit a service request to Access Valley Water.
As of Thursday morning, our ten water supply reservoirs have a combined storage of 34 percent of their full capacity, which is about half of normal for this time of year. This leaves a significant amount of storage space to capture the expected storm runoff. Most of our large reservoirs are unlikely to reach capacity this week or next. The exceptions are Almaden Reservoir and the relatively small Vasona Reservoir in Los Gatos, which regularly reaches capacity during the rainy season. While Almaden Reservoir may reach capacity, we do not anticipate any flooding issues downstream.
Visit our website (http://www.valleywater.org/floodready/) for flood safety tips, current reservoir levels and stream flows, and maps to free sandbag sites.
This information has been shared with all cities in the county.
Richard P. Santos is chair of the Santa Clara Valley Water District Board of Directors. He can be reached at [email protected].