LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake Transit Authority's buses will be back on the county's roads on Friday, after transit officials on Thursday morning temporarily closed down the service because of safety concerns related to storm conditions.
Wanda Gray, regional manager for Paratransit Services – the Bremerton, Wash.-based company that holds the Lake Transit contract – said they plan to assess the situation starting at about 3:30 a.m. Friday.
After they check conditions and any major road closures, Gray said buses will be rolling out onto their routes, with the first bus scheduled to leave the yard at 5 a.m.
Despite predictions of heavy rain on Thursday, the transit authority had planned to move forward with normal operations.
“We were trying to do what the school system was doing,” said Gray. “They took a wait and see approach and so did we.”
By early morning, most of the county's schools had declared a storm day. The buses were attempting to continue on, but not for long.
The flooded roadways were a factor in the Thursday service suspension, but more of an issue, said Gray, were the resulting road closures.
Buses heading to the Lakeport area were turned around by law enforcement at Highland Springs and Highway 29, she said.
Vehicles also had been backed up at Kit's Corner and on Seigler Canyon Road, she said.
“It was just kind of happening all at once” – with one closure after another, and the situation changing rapidly, Gray said.
“Nobody was getting anywhere,” she added.
One of Lake Transit's major routes follows Olympic Drive and Burns Valley Road through Clearlake, where flood waters were about 2 feet deep, Gray said.
Gray said it was safer for people to stay home – both riders and drivers alike. In the case of employees, they live all over the county, and Gray said there were concerns about them being able to get home safely themselves.
At around 9:45 a.m. Thursday, the decision was made to have buses return to the bus barn in Lower Lake and to return riders home or to their closest bus stop, Gray said.
Dial-a-ride and health services patients also had to be rescheduled, but Gray said most of them were calling and saying, “I'm not going out in that,” referring to the weather.
“The phones were really, really busy this morning,” she said.
As buses were returning and workers being sent home, Gray said the Lake County Fire Protection District contacted Lake Transit at about 10:30 a.m. to ask them to be on call in case they were needed to help evacuate a nursing home in the city's Village area.
High waters were threatening that neighborhood, where officials reported about 100 residents would be evacuated to a shelter set up at Lower Lake High School.
Gray said Lake Transit drivers who live in the Clearlake area were put on call in case they were needed. However, as it turned out, they were not called upon.
While Lake Transit personnel were sent home, Gray remained at the Lower Lake facility, where the flood waters edged closer to the bus barn throughout the day, but finally began to recede at around 3:30 p.m.
She was remaining in Clearlake overnight in case the situation worsened.
Gray said she was impressed with the response of local agencies to the storm, noting they quickly had signs up and dealt with road and other hazards.
For more about Lake Transit visit http://laketransit.org/ .
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Lake Transit buses to resume routes Friday
- Elizabeth Larson
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