As far as California goes, this is probably as close to a hurricane or tornado as we could get. And no we don't have basements here (unless you have a meth lab).

I saw so many trees and limbs actually falling, plus so many numerous other amazing visuals that could have injured me or worse, that I can't even really put them into perspective right now. I attempted to explain what I saw with my girlfriend earlier and as I described the things I saw today I could see that it wasn't registering in her mind the way I saw them. In other words "you had to be there". My mind is just overrun with images of flooding in all directions, including back up off the ground thanks to 100+ mph winds... fallen trees, fences, misc. debri on the highway everywhere... jackknived big rigs, cars upside down...

This one is difficult to explain but it was so cool to see. I was driving down a main road in the Santa Cruz mountains where there was a steep hill on my left and a steep drop-off on my right, all heavily forested. A large Monterey Pine had fallen from high up the cliff on the left and was resting on some power lines. The other end of it was resting on the tops of some other trees. It was completely uprooted just waiting to crash to the road below as soon as a strong enough gust of wind overpowered those cables. I drove underneath it in awe.

There are so many things I saw, including some I cannot even put into words. While driving a big rig all day in this weather I'm lucky to be uninjured. More importantly I look at mother nature and am reminded of how powerless we humans are. What a day. I'm happy I'm not working the next two days!