Wednesday, March 23: Campus officials reported no new storm damage, from the wind and rain that swept through Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.

Earlier coverage: Wind brings down scaffolding at Mondavi Center

Last weekend’s wind felled more than trees. It also brought down scaffolding, about 6 feet wide and two stories tall, near the front door of the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts.

The storm came through late Saturday and into Sunday morning. As the scaffolding came down, it apparently struck two of the glass panels in the overhang at the box office. The panels — made of safety glass — stayed in place, cracked but not shattered.

The scaffolding, as it came down, did not otherwise damage the building.

Allen Tollefson, assistant vice chancellor for Facilities Management, reported no significant damage to other structures on the Davis campus — just “the typical leaks when we have rain and high winds.”

“Horizontal rain always is challenging,” he said.

The scaffolding at the Mondavi Center had been erected around a repair project where the south side of the semicircular box office connects to the east wall of the main building. Clayton Halliday, campus architect, said the project involves a fix to a membrane that keeps water out of the building.

Steve McFerron, director of facilities for the Mondavi Center, was the first to respond, soon to be joined by Halliday and Ken Bolen of Facilities Management. They cleared the scaffolding from in front of the Mondavi Center and cordoned off the box office (the part under the broken glass) before two matinees (one in the Vanderhoef Studio Theatre and the other in Jackson Hall).

The broken glass has since been removed and will be replaced by plastic panels, temporarily, until new glass can be put in place. The scaffolding also be put back up.

Earlier coverage: Grounds crew clears campus of downed trees

Saturday night’s storm brought down 13 trees and left the campus “covered in green litter,” grounds superintendent Cary Avery said.

But you won’t see much of that litter today (March 21). Avery and arborists John McKnight and Melissa Boelman came in at 6 a.m. Sunday to start cleaning things up, and groundskeepers got busy with their regular shifts at 5 a.m. today.

The crew had the roads and bike paths pretty much cleared by 8:30 a.m.

Avery blamed the saturated soil for most of the downed trees — they simply uprooted.

Large limbs broke off or separated from tree trunks, including two pines in the Tercero housing area. Limbs from one of those trees hit the roof of one of the older Tercero residence halls, while another limb crashed onto a bicycle parking area behind the Tercero Dining Commons.

The residence hall sustained minor damage, but a couple of bikes did not fare so well. One of them ended up with a front wheel twisted into a figure eight.

Avery said later that his crew would eventually fell both pine trees — which will bring to 15 the total of storm casualties.

Other fallen trees and limbs did not hit any buildings, Avery said. However, one limb took out a fixture on a light post.

Avery said the storm struck hardest between midnight and 6 a.m. Sunday, with wind gusts from 50 to 70 mph — almost as bad as the windstorm of Jan. 4, 2008, when the campus saw gusts of 70 mph and higher, just short of Category 1 hurricane status.

After that storm, the grounds division hauled off an estimated 1,600 cubic yards of debris — enough to cover a football field 2 feet deep. This time around, Avery said he expects his crews will haul off about 1,200 cubic yards — all of which will go to compost.