Multiple Santa Barbara area locations facing rain impacts and new concerns

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - A very steady river of rain all morning quickly raised the level of creeks on the Central Coast and with that came concerns. That included sections of Mission Creek, where it splits  Oak Park and gushes down to the waterfront. 

Out of the Montecito Hills heading to Santa Barbara, Sycamore Creek loaded up and in some areas made its own route over Sycamore Canyon Road forcing a closure. The area is also known for mudslides.

A section of Channel Drive was off limits when it could not handle all the water coming down Olive Mill Road. Drains were open but at times overwhelmed.  This area drains to Butterfly beach. The ocean waves were churned up but the tides were not especially high or damaging there.

There was a double dose of problems in the morning, with rain and about 10 o'clock there was a power outage in downtown and   it took about two hours for area businesses and signalized intersections to be energized again. A transformer blew  and it was dark from De la Vina to State Street.

Anticipating a lunch crowd at Yona Redz the owner Jonathan "Yona" Estrada said, "I was just going to go old school and start charging cash." Right around noon,  the lights went back on and systems powered up. "We would have lost our lunch hour. Even though  it's raining we still get on line orders and stuff like that, " said Estrada.

 A regular at Joe's was able to get a drink while he waited for the  power to go on and his lunch to be prepared. Peter McCorkle said, "I got down here at 11:30, the power was out. I kept saying you know what, the power will come on because  just across the street everything was on."           

The waterfront had another layer of debris from the ocean impacts in the Leadbetter beach parking lot.The picnic area was swamped  and the nearby cliff erosion  on Shoreline park seemed to be holding up better than a week ago. For those tired of sandbagging and dealing with the rain this winter like Estrada, "I hope for the sunny days, all of us businesses hope for the sunny days. It's going to help us a lot."