Man dies after crashing car into Novato creek
MARIN, Calif. (KGO) -- A man died when he crashed his car into a creek in Novato on Monday after a major storm hit the Bay Area over the weekend.
Crews are working to get debris out of San Anselmo Creek and that's because it could back up or block the storm run-off, even flood homes in the area.
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One man said he looked outside his window after the storm and saw his entire backyard and trees completely gone.
A 10-foot swath of a Creekside backyard slid down a hill Sunday taking massive bay trees down the slope.
The fear is that it would all dam up the fast flowing creek. "We want to make sure we get the debris out of the way so that if there's a lot of water or rain tomorrow or even if there's not, if it gets jammed up we could get flooding and there are a lot of homes at risk," San Anselmo Public Works Director Sean Condry said.
A massive crane moved the trees piece by piece out of the way in what will be an overnight blitz of work.
Marin County Public Works tweeted video of them working to remove debris building up at the Redwood Boulevard Bridge.
And the race was on to get a Nissan Altima out of a creek off a narrow stretch of rural Novato Boulevard. "The vehicle went through the guard rail, overturned and as it did so, landed upside down in the creek about 15 feet below," CHP Ofc. Andrew Barclay said.
The raging waters overnight submerged the car and the driver died. There were no witnesses, but CHP believes the combination of slick roads and bald tires might have triggered the fatal crash. By noon, crews got the car out of the creek, so it didn't block the flow of the storm runoff. "We've started to see a lot of movement of soils around houses, structures and trees and we've had a lot of trees come down into structures," Marin County Fire Department Batt. Chief Jeremy Pierce said.
High tide Sunday triggered rising waters off of Lucky Drive in Larkspur. The waters receded Monday, but another high-tide is expected at 10:17 a.m. Tuesday morning.
Some residents are worried about the next storm approaching, with one man even moving all his furniture and a piano up onto wood pallets just in case.
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