Tornado touches down near Santa Cruz in Northern California, flipping cars and downing power lines

A twister touched down within the Northern California city of Scotts Valley close to Santa Cruz Saturday afternoon, flipping automobiles and flattening energy strains, based on authorities. A number of folks had been harm, hearth officers mentioned. 

The incident occurred at round 1:40 p.m. across the 200 block of Mount Hermon Drive. Scotts Valley police initially posted an alert on social media advising residents to keep away from the world following a multi-vehicle accident that had a number of energy strains down and fully blocked the street in all instructions.

Police later posted an replace saying that witnesses reported it was not an accident “however quite a attainable twister” that touched down close to the Goal retailer at 270 Mount Hermon Drive “and threw a number of automobiles off the street.” 

The Scotts Valley Hearth Safety District instructed CBS News that 4 to 5 folks had been harm within the climate occasion, sustaining minor to average accidents. At the very least two of these folks had been transported to hospitals.

Round 20 automobiles had been believed to have been broken, the fireplace district mentioned. 

Scotts Valley is a small city about six miles north of Santa Cruz in Santa Cruz County and a brief distance off of State Freeway 17.    

The Nationwide Climate Service had issued an extreme thunderstorm warning within the space a short while earlier than the twister.

A later publish on X by the Bay Space workplace of the Nationwide Climate Service confirmed {that a} twister had occurred primarily based on “video, photographs, firsthand accounts, and radar signatures.” 

The publish famous {that a} NWS Survey workforce will additional examine the incident to offer a rating.    

The twister was simply the most recent excessive wind occasion linked to the highly effective storm that handed via Northern California in a single day. The first-ever tornado warning in San Francisco was issued by the Nationwide Climate Service early Saturday morning shortly earlier than 6 a.m., alarming residents with a cellphone alert that woke many individuals up, based on studies on social media.

Whereas that twister didn’t materialize, excessive winds had been inflicting impacts throughout the area, together with a city-wide power outage in the North Bay city of Novato and a full closure of Interstate 580 in each instructions on the San Joaquin and Alameda county line after a multiple-vehicle collision involving an enormous rig resulting from excessive winds.