Storm caused damage, mudslides in North Bay

As much of the Bay Area starts to dry out, there's still a lot of flooding and cleanup to do after Thursday's storm.

PHOTOS: Severe storm hits the Bay Area

The water is receding in Sonoma County, but at least one man ABC7 News spoke with is keeping his spray foam handy.

The best weapons to fight water are wood boards and spray foam, according to Matthew Magan. "We could have taken a boat from here to Oakland and not hit one thing," he said.

Magan looks at the routine flooding with a bit of romance. "We are the only water front dining in Sonoma when it rains and floods," he said.

Even though the Schellville Grill stayed dry, water damaged the restaurant's bottom line. "It's like call the bank and ask for forgiveness you know," Magan said.

Finally, there was some relief on Friday afternoon.

Highway 121 and Broadway reopened allowing customers access to Schellville Grill.

Water also receeded from a busy intersection nearby, but the power remained out.

At Leisure Lake Mobile Home Park, life is back to normal after hours of flood induced isolation. "We ended up just hanging out and playing Rummikub and Yahtzee and having a good time with friends," Linda Ward said.

Schell-Vista's Fire Chief Ray Mulas says it's too early to know the storms total reach. "When the lowlands drain, then we're going to really find out what sort of damage really took place," he said.

Lingering water turned a barn into an island in Petaluma. Let's hope these cows grazing on higher ground don't consider it home.

Two small mudslides brought Caltrans crews to Highway 116 on Friday. Cars lined up waiting for the fix.

"Let's see where we're at in January because if we get saturated like this and it continues we might have some serious mud slides," Mulas said.

Despite the inconvenience of the flooding and the cleanup, what ABC7 heard was thank goodness for the rain because we desperately need it.