A winter storm carrying wind gusts up to 60 mph and heavy rain pounded the Sacramento region Wednesday, cutting power to more than 50,000 people, knocking down dozens of trees and causing minor street flooding. Most of the outages were scattered in small pockets with small numbers of customers per outage. The highest number of outages was 370 at the storm's peak, which occurred between about 9 and 10 a.m., said Chris Capra, spokesperson for Sacramento Municipal Utility District. The storm didn't cause nearly the amount of power outages as the biggest storm in October, when thousands of outages occurred, Capra said. The lack of leaves on trees at this time of year helped; there wasn't a s

"That's the thanks I get?" could be going through this Sacramento City worker's mind when a car sprays him as he tries to unclog a drain at Freeport and 10th in front of The Crepe Escape. In my journeys around Downtown, East Sac and Land Park, it looks like we emerged relatilvely unscathed. A worker prepares to cut a big limb (below) at the corner of N and 23rd this morning, perhaps as preventive maintenance. I caught news blurbs of a tree that fell on a house in Fair Oaks and of a Southwest flight from Sacramento being struck by lightning in southern California.There are scattered power outages in the area, (good for restaurants), and a potential for blizzard conditions in the Sierra. A

It was quite the blustery day in Sacramento as winds reached over 50 mph and more than 3 inches of rain fell, according to Fox 40 News meteorologist Kristina Werner. Trees and branches fell in streets, on houses, on cars and power lines went out intermittently through the central city. Streets turned into ponds, traffic slowed making commutes much longer than usual and I-5 was a flooded mess near the boat section despite the recent work by Caltrans. It seemed there wasn't one corner of the city that the storm didn't touch. Businesses such as Temple and Lucky Lefty's (shown below) felt the effects of the storm. It's hard to believe many of us were just wearing flip flops, skirts, short

Here are some photos of the effects of the storm from community members who were out witnessing the damage.   This was taken at Q and 16th streets by Michael Gelber. These two photos were taken on I Street and 30th. Ed Fogle of Maverick Photography took these as part of a live stream. More photos can be seen at sacmav.com The next photos are from Southbound I-5 near the J Street exit in the boat section. These photos were also taken by Ed Fogle of Maverick Photography. If you have photos of the storm, we'd love to see you post them on our site. If you have any questions on how to upload your photos, contact journalism@sacramentopress.com. Stay safe and dry!

Sacramento, CA Friday, May 1, 2009 Sacramento EMS crews were kept quite busy all day Friday. Mild temperatures and start of a new weekend had many people out on the road, but add in rain with heavy traffic throughout the region and you’ve created a recipe for havoc on the roads. We caught up with Sacramento Fire engines, truck crews, medic rigs, and Sac Police on a couple of incidents today out of the many we heard being dispatched over the squawk box. As the rain poured down, fire crews made sure the scenes were safe and assisted as paramedics tended to the victims; and officers took statements and reports on wet notepads. The first incident we encountered with EMS crews was a head-on c

So, two days ago, I took a quick shot from the I Street Bridge, upstream towards Discovery Park. This afternoon, during a break in the rain, I walked back up and took another. Not quite the same telephoto distance, but I do believe you can see some change in the height of the river. So, how weird would it be to have a levee break in the middle of a drought? 

The Bee was full of cloudy skies today with news of soaring unemployment rates and the fiscal undoing of my employer, the County of Sacramento. It put me in a gloomy mood. Yet when I took my dog out for his walk this afternoon the actual cloudy skies brightened my outlook. The clouds were beautiful to look at, for one, and made me feel grateful for the rain they carried, which our drought-ridden state needs so badly. So I took some pictures of them.