Sunday rain brings downed power lines/trees and flooding to North Santa Barbara County

The rain showed no mercy for North Santa Barbara County this morning.

There was a road closure on Dominion Road just outside of Santa Maria by 11 am and just past the closure sign there weas flooding, trees down and power lines down.

The rain not kind for drivers either, earlier we spoke with a man who was broken down on the side of the road.

“Me and my friends were having a little bit of fun, going off-roading and having fun and then they were like let me take control and then all of a sudden we’re in a ditch and everything’s all broken and stuff,” Chase Bradley, who was having truck problems said.

Chase Bradley says getting stuck out in this rain with a broken down truck is nowhere you want to be.

“You can kind of see here, the belts completely twisted, we had to change a new spare tire, the radiator’s gone and kind of a big mess right now,” Bradley said.

Luckily for Bradley, a good samaritan stopped to help.

“I was just out with my family, we were just taking a nice ride, checking out the scenery here, all the rain and noticed this gentleman on the side of the road, broken down, you gotta stop and help,” good samaritan Bryan Jarnesky said.

“Message for anyone, I wouldn’t go out in this, even though it seems like fun, it’s not worth the risk of ruining your vehicle and getting stranded out here,” Bradley said.

Just outside of Santa Maria city limits, Dominion Road was closed between Clark Avenue and Orcutt Garey Road because of flooding and there was downed power lines that were strung alongside Dominion Road for about half a mile.

Over here on Telephone and Prell Road just outside of Santa Maria, that area has pretty much become a lake – several trucks braving the roughly one foot of high water.

“Just going to go check out my family’s ranch, the storm hit it pretty hard so we’re just going to check it out if there’s a lot of damage or not,” driver Nathan Guillen said.

In about 10 minutes we counted five trucks muscle through this high water- which CHP is not recommending.

“Couple days ago actually this whole road was closed so yea it gets pretty bad out here sometimes,” Guillen said.

“It could happen to anyone and sadly it happened to me,” Bradley said.

Just a reminder, it’s a California state law that if you have your windshield wipers on, you must have your lights on.