During the windy and wet storm Jan. 4, the UC Davis News Service made routine inquiries around campus, asking people like Kimberly Ney to report any damage to facilities.

Ney, client services supervisor at the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital, emailed back: "Does a branch from Lot 51 going through my back windshield count?"

Hers was not the only vehicle to sustain damage as wind gusted to 70 mph — four miles per hour short of a Category 1 hurricane. Trees and branches fell on at least seven autos around campus, accounting for the university's most significant property damage in the storm.

The Buildings and Grounds division estimated its costs alone from the storm at up to $84,000, including overtime pay and 13 lost trees.

Authorities who monitored the storm from the campus's Emergency Operations Center said they received no reports of injuries. And, despite rainfall in excess of 2 inches, there were no reports of major flooding, nor did building leaks do any major damage.

Only one building took a tree hit — the office at the university airport west of the main campus. Cary Avery, grounds superintendent, said a limb nearly 3 feet around fell from a stone pine and landed on the office roof, but did no damage.

The wicked wind loosened a couple of the aluminum slats in the canopy at the front of the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts; one slat fell to the ground and another was bent out of position, so much so that maintenance workers took it down.

The wind blew off the metal sheathing from one of the pillars at the front of the Activities and Recreation Center, and brought down a section of fence at the Rec Pool.

Sal Genito, director of Buildings and Grounds, said the severity of the Jan. 4 wind is evident in the way that it brought down seven trees. Usually, he said, a doomed tree will blow over at the roots. But these trees "totally exploded," Genito said, describing how they snapped at the trunk. "That's amazing," he said.

Luckily, few people were on campus on the Friday before the start of the winter quarter.

"Trees are so unpredictable," Genito said. "Had more people been out walking, the material coming off the trees would have definitely hurt someone."

How much material? As of Monday morning, after the first few days of cleanup: 800 cubic yards.

Genito said his crews worked until 5 p.m. Friday and all day Saturday, and would spend all this week on cleanup. He expected the debris total to reach 1,600 cubic yards — enough to cover a football field more than 2 feet deep.

Blackout at Castilian halls

The university's power system, serving much of the campus, fared much better than Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s in the city of Davis, where some people went without power through the weekend.

Some parts of the main campus experienced a blackout from 7:15 to 7:40 a.m. Friday. The power failure lasted until 8:15 a.m. in the south campus area — south of Interstate 80.

PG&E serves the university's Cuarto student housing area, north of Russell Boulevard, and the Castilian residence halls there lost power from 7:30 a.m. Friday to 1:30 p.m. Sunday. That was 54 hours with no lights, no heat and no hot water.

Normally, the halls are home to some 500 students; most were still away for the holiday. For the 50 or so who had returned, Student Housing arranged a warm place for them to hang out in an upstairs space, complete with television, at the nearby Oxford Dining Commons. "They could have slept there if they wanted," said Emily Galindo, interim director of Student Housing. But, she said, they chose to return to their rooms.

Additionally, had the power failure extended through Sunday night, Student Housing had arranged for Castilian residents to shower at the Activities and Recreation Center.

Two other times during the weekend, the ARC was on standby to serve as a Red Cross processing center or emergency shelter. Eventually, the Red Cross made other plans.

"It's one of those things you have to get ready for," said Valerie Lucus, campus emergency manager, in between talking with Yolo County, city of Davis and Red Cross authorities, as the agencies coordinated their response to the storm.

Lucas implemented a "partial activation" of the Emergency Operations Center during the storm. "This is a place where we gather information and disseminate it back to the people who need it," she said.

'Absolutely the worst'

Genito said the storm was "absolutely the worst" he had seen in his 12 years at UC Davis. "The winds were howling, you could barely walk in it," he said.

Buildings and Grounds "mustered everyone with a heartbeat," more than 100 men and women, beginning at 7 a.m., that day, and dispatched them to deal with downed trees and branches, clear drains and pile sandbags for flood control. More than 50 people came in Saturday to continue with cleanup.

The Police Department maintained its regular patrol lineup, three officers on the main campus and four at the medical center, but brought in an extra dispatcher — for a total of three, Chief Annette Spicuzza said.

The dispatchers not only handled campus calls, but took 911 calls for Davis and Yolo counties, too, when their emergency generators went down.

The UC Davis Fire Department staffed its normal complement of one engine and one truck, plus an additional engine. Assistant Chief Wes Arvin said crews responded to nine incidents on campus: one medical call unrelated to the storm and eight false alarms — when fire alarm systems went off inadvertently, either because of the weather or because of contractor error. The Fire Department answered eight mutual aid calls from the city of Davis.

Campus authorities asked researchers to minimize their use of fume hoods, after a number of alarms went off — signaling that the wind outside was shooting down the exhaust pipes.

At the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital, Ney went outside to survey the damage to her Ford Excursion sport utility vehicle. A branch had broken through the SUV's rear window.

While she was standing in the parking lot, Ney said, she saw a large limb snap off a eucalyptus tree about three car lengths away. The limb fell on a Ford pickup's hood and windshield, and caved in the roof of the truck's extended cab.

Ney said the truck belongs to a co-worker, Sharon Farnham. "The damage to mine is nothing compared to hers," Ney said.