Escalon Police Chief Mike Borges said he is “knocking on wood” as the rain continues to fall this week but, so far, there have been no major issues associated with the series of storms that started late last week.

Nearly four inches of rain was recorded from Friday through Monday around the Escalon area, but Borges said the impact appeared minimal.

Meanwhile, the San Joaquin County Public Works Department was scheduled to begin a lane closure on the Stanislaus River Bridge, south of Escalon on McHenry Avenue starting this past Monday, Jan. 9 and continuing for roughly a month.

Depending on weather conditions, the closure will be to allow the county to install bird netting under the bridge in preparation for the construction of a new bridge structure. A new bridge will be built spanning the Stanislaus River between San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties, and the bird netting installation under the existing bridge is part of the process.

“There will be lane closure from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.,” noted Awni Taha of the county’s Public Works Department in a press release issued on Jan. 5. “During this period for approximately four weeks expect traffic delays.”

The lane closure and netting installation could be impacted by the wet weather.

Borges said he was pleased that his department did not respond to any weather-related traffic collisions over the rainy weekend.

“Our Public Works Department did a great job preparing ahead of this storm,” he said. “They were out clearing drains, they had the sand bag station set up, when I left on Friday, I saw people taking advantage of that, getting sand bags filled up and ready.”

With the rain saturating the ground, Borges said he is concerned about the possibility of trees falling but, again, had had no reports of that occurring within the city.

“I have seen a few that have fallen in orchards but nothing here,” the chief said.

He added that Public Works personnel were on call during the weekend in case of any weather-related incidents such as street flooding or downed trees but aside from being wet, the city seemed to come through the period unscathed.

“We’ll see what the rest of the week brings, though,” Borges said.

Forecasters are calling for rainy weather to continue Wednesday and Thursday with possible clearing by Friday.