CASTRO VALLEY — Public safety agencies’ quick response helped 22 people get home safely after rain-swollen creek waters flooded a golf course Tuesday afternoon, authorities said.
Just before noon, officers got a call about a flooded roadway at Redwood Canyon Golf Course, East Bay Regional Parks police Lt. Alan Love said.
“San Leandro Creek runs right along the golf course, but with runoff, it just kind of backed up,” Love said. “We got to an area where it was 300 feet wide and 12 to 18 inches across the roadway.”
Police responded with Alameda County and East Bay Regional Parks firefighters, and park rangers with a pair of Ford Expedition sport-utility vehicles to ferry the people from the golf course’s restaurant, the Meadows at Redwood Canyon, to safety.
Love said about 15 people were part of a retired teacher’s association that had booked the restaurant for a luncheon for at least 50 people, and the others were restaurant employees. All were local enough to get rides home, Love said.
“At the time we decided to evacuate, the water was continuing to rise,” Love added. “We weren’t concerned about the rising as much as that the road would get to the point where it would be unsafe to evacuate.”
Parks police said the golf course is closed for public use for the rest of the day, and officers are preparing to monitor the creek overnight.
#CastroValley: 22 people were safely evacuated from flooded area @ Redwood Canyon Public Golf Course via an #ALCOFire SUV & @ebrpd PD SUV. pic.twitter.com/8fMmFxtO0Y
— Alameda County Fire (@AlamedaCoFire) February 7, 2017
Contact George Kelly at 408-859-5180
