2 Walnut
Creek teens drowned in treacherous stream
Kelly
Zito, Chronicle Staff Writer
Published
4:00 am, Wednesday, February 23, 2011
The Powell Family Tragedy
The
father of Gavin suffered a stroke while working for Longs, he's got long term
stroke issues and I travel up to his place. As a project manager for
Longs when the big outsourcing machines from Accenture and Protivity tried to
get a foot hold Jim ended their contracts.
The
business targeting model if you can't take down (kill) the obstacle, then take
out the collateral target.
per Jim
he's never had a completed police report. I know how these agencies
operate as I've used my IT skills to break their business processes in little
segments.
The
really strange part is Lt. Hill's comments that he has a son at Los
Lomas.
Walnut Creek Police Lt. Jay Hill
Along
the way I wrote the FBI when Hill pulled his little stunt over in front of
Peet's Coffee. Then I read about Hill being the hero first responder up
on Skycrest where of all things Alice Roberts Attorney David Nearon appeared
with a revised power of attorney.
Attorney
Nearon baptized my ex-wife at Alamo 1st Ward, her father died in the house, i
never trusted the story, David knows Nate Greenan (deceased), Nate would know
Ernie Scherer Jr. (Murdered by Ernie Scherer III) who would know his father
James Greenan, they all know Joan Buchanan, Federal Glover, Eric Nunn, Mark
DeSaulnier, Gavin Newsome, and Richard Rainey whose nephew Michael McNutly is
deceased.
In my
old Cameo Neighborhood I've nicknamed it Burnville - as 1,000 feet in each
direction, one suicide in a car, four total losses and one dad me whose truck
blew up on 680 and can't find a police report. I'm betting that CHP
officer B. Johnson who appeared in late 2012 at Starbucks Duncan is Mormon -
just a hunch as his family could be another Mormon I know.
A
brash attempt by two urban teens to raft an urban stream probably turned
quickly into a harrowing plunge through a concrete chute, with 20-foot vertical
walls on both sides, churning with rainwater, branches, rocks and trash.
The channel where Matthew
Miller, 16, andGavin
Powell, 17, of Walnut Creek drowned Saturday may
have only been a few feet deep, but its appearance was deceiving. And,
officials say, channels like this one can be found all over the Bay Area.
"It looks totally innocent," said Mitch
Avalon, deputy director of the Public
Works Department of Contra Costa County.
"But when it's full (of water) you can't get out once you're
in it."
About
100 feet from where the boys entered the water with their two-person inflatable
raft was a chute with 20-foot-high walls and no way out. The frigid waters
moved swiftly and they were soon pulled underground into a
three-quarter-mile-long tunnel beneath downtown Walnut Creek. A few miles
downstream, they tumbled two stories into a deep pool designed to slow raging
storm runoff.
The
boys' bodies were recovered Sunday in Concord, several miles downstream of the
pool. Their deflated raft was found upstream, in Walnut Creek, at
the waterfall.
Common
urban feature
Flood
control channels - some visible, some not - are common in cities where a
central river or stream has the potential to overrun its banks. But these
mundane canals are extremely treacherous when swollen with heavy rains, experts
say, because they function to funnel water as quickly as possible from urban
areas into larger bodies of water.
The San
Ramon bypass the teens tried to navigate was built in the late 1980s to channel
storm water from Walnut Creek's parking lots, streets and sidewalks.
Downstream, the bypass connects with the namesake Walnut Creek waterway before
emptying into Suisun Bay to the north.
During
parched summer months, the channel flow shrivels to a trickle. But last week's
soaking storms produced a coursing ribbon of water - a vision that proved too
enticing for two teens described as funny, smart, outgoing
and adventurous.
Amid Saturday's soggy weather, the two juniors from Las
Lomas High School donned helmets and
launched their blue-and-yellow raft on Sans Crainte Creek in a residential area
near Murwood
Elementary School and Vanderslice Avenue,
authorities said. They did not wear life vests.
Sans
Crainte Creek and other upstream brooks that cut through private land are
protected only by trees, brush, backyards, open spaces and roads. In some
spots, dirt paths wind down to the water.
Just
downstream, however, the bracken-covered banks give way to the sheer cement
walls of the San Ramon bypass. Beyond the walls and up on the banks, the
channel is surrounded by fences adorned with "No
Trespassing" signs.
On Tuesday, officials with the Contra
Costa County Flood Control and Water
Conservation District, which owns and manages the San Ramon bypass, examined
the site where Matthew and Gavin embarked to evaluate whether additional
fencing or warnings are necessary or feasible - particularly on private
property, Avalon said. They are expecting to present a report to the
county Board
of Supervisors next week.
At least
one of the teenagers' classmates said the current warnings and barriers
aren't enough.
"The signs say 'No trespassing,' but they should
probably communicate the danger ... that there are serious consequences, that
people have died," said William
Hansel, a Las Lomas senior who ran on the
cross-country team with Miller.
Investigators
with the Contra Costa Sheriff's Department and Walnut Creek Police Department
are uncertain how far the boys traveled aboard their raft. But the deflated
raft was found several miles to the north at the 20-foot man-made waterfall
near Bancroft Road and Bentley Street at 8:30 a.m. Sunday.
The
bodies of Matthew and Gavin were recovered in the waterway near Buchanan Field
in Concord. They were reported missing by their families shortly after midnight
Sunday after friends said they missed a prearranged pickup appointment
Saturday evening.
The
tragedy, which many classmates marked Tuesday by wearing bright yellow -
Matthew and Gavin often wore yellow bike gear - and leaving flowers and cards
at spots along the creek, isn't the first for that stretch of waterway.
In April, a 75-year-old Walnut Creek woman was pulled from
the channel in a dramatic helicopter rescue after the car driven by her son
crashed through two fences and landed upside down in the rushing water. Janet
Hogan survived; but her son,
40-year-old Timothy
Hogan, and husband, 79-year-old James
Hogan, died.
Other
teen drownings
Three
other teens who ventured into the creek drowned in two separate instances in
the early 1990s and early 1970s, Avalon said.
Granted, many more children and adults may have braved the
creeks waters over the years and come away unscathed - they simply haven't come
to the attention of authorities, said sheriff's Lt. Eric
Navarro, who announced the finding of the boys'
bodies Sunday.
"All
of us have done things in our lives that you look back on and think, I got away
with one," Navarro said.
