Friday Update on March 1 2019
All,
Just a couple announcements:
- Rain or shine, the Winters Friends of the Library Fruit Tree Sale is tomorrow (March 2) on Railroad Ave. Trees are $10 and the sale is from 9 a.m. until noon (or they run out of trees). WFoL is one of Winters best organizations, providing support to the Community Library with hours, programming and many other community benefits. I have 10 fruit trees in my yard, all from this sale and I totally recommend!
- Tickets for the Friday March 8, 2019 Winters Fire Fish Fry are now on sale. Click Here to go to their link where you can purchase tickets.
A quick storm update:
- Winter storms continue to bring an incredible amount of rain and water into our area, creating significant runoff from already saturated hillsides, fields and farm lands.
- The issues with the detention pond seem to have been solved with the pumping schedule and the closure of the canal breach making things manageable. For all intents and purposes, the pond has been almost empty even with 3-4 inches of rain over two day periods. The permanent pumps with temporary power are scheduled to be put into operation on March 7.
- Those affected by the January 16/17 storm are working with insurance companies to resolve claims and get repairs completed.
On social media a main question has been “why did the City not know the canal was breached”. In 2018, we had significant rains and not a single issue with the detention pond. In 2019, The most significant rains occurred during evenings which created runoff and frankly, the water just begins to rush, similar to a flash flood. The rains on the week of February 18 gave us an opportunity to track the water in the daylight which led us to the canal breach. Once found, we were able to close the breach and get things back to normal. When water which is supposed to flow into different drainage systems flows in a different direction it can cause issues. The fact that the pond was not drained sufficiently and external water rushing into the system is what caused the overflow. We are confident we have resolved the issues and the fact that we have had 2 100 year events in the past 3 weeks with no additional flooding is testament that things are under control.
Finally, Winters lost a very important member of our community with the passing of Don Frisbee on Wednesday evening at home. The Frisbee Family is a long time business in town and they ran “Frisbee Motors” on Railroad Ave for many years as one of our City’s main car dealerships in the 1940, 50’s and 60’s.. Don was a Winters High School Graduate, went on to Stanford University then into the United States Air Force where he retired at the rank of Lt. Coronel and worked in the Intellegence Section during the Vietnam War. He later become an aerospace executive, working for Northrup Gruman and the development of the B-2 Bomber. He was a Charter Member of the Rotary Club of Winters and a really great guy. He is survived by his wife Betty and a wonderful family. He will be missed.
Have a nice weekend.
John