22 evacuated from Redwood Canyon GC

And you thought your golf course was a bit squidgy under foot. Spare a thought for the guys at Redwood Canyon Golf Club where California floods resulted in police and fire fighters having to rescue 22 people.

Rescue workers' rapid response was praised last night after the stranded golfers got home safely after rain-swollen creek waters flooded the course.

"I did tell them not to leave the bath water running..."

“San Leandro Creek runs right along the golf course," said East Bay Regional Parks police Lt. Alan Love. "But with runoff, it just kind of backed up.

"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.

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“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.

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