PG&E prepares Santa Cruz Mountains for falling trees during winter storms

UPDATE 12/1/2015:Storm preps are underway in the Santa Cruz Mountains as Pacific Gas & Electric works to prevent power outages this winter. NewsChannel 5’s spent time with a crew in Boulder Creek on Monday to find out what’s being done to protect homes.

This winter, drought stressed trees are once again at the mercy of Mother Nature. In a storm, branches, limbs, even entire trees could fall on power lines or homes, like we saw last winter.

“It’s very likely that if a storm comes in, trees can fall down or their branches can fall down and they can knock down power lines and that can become a situation and that’s something we want to take care of early on so we can prevent any accidents,” PG&E spokeswoman Mayra Tostado said.

Crews are marking trees set to be trimmed back with a blue dot and a blue X for those to be removed. There’s a tree near Teri Ward’s home that’s concerning to her. She’s happy to see something being done about it.

“Its drought stressed, it’s beautiful and it’s huge. You can see all the branches hanging over the power line. If that goes, it could start sparks or whatever, I don’t know. I’m worried about them falling on my roof,” Ward said.

She said last winter wasn’t too bad, even though she lost power several times and she has a generator. With a strong, rainy winter foretasted this year, PG&E said it’s ready with crews standing by, and meteorologists watching the weather.

“We have an outage prediction model so we know where the storms are going to hit and hit hard. We have crews standing by so whenever we need them to come, they’re ready. We have stockpiled equipment, poles, power lines, transformers,” Tostado said.

They’re asking residents to their part, by reporting any trees that look dangerous.

ORIGINAL STORY: PG&E is preparing for the upcoming winter that’s expected to be made stronger because of El Nio.

Spokesperson Mayra Tostado says crews are trimming limbs or removing trees in parts of the Santa Cruz Mountains. These trees, already stressed by the drought, pose a new set of concerns ahead of winter. Limbs or even the entire tree could fall on power lines, creating widespread outages.

NewsChannel 5’s Mariana Hicks joined one crew in Boulder Creek. She will have more on this story tonight at 5 and 6.