High winds and rain sent dozens of trees and tree limbs crashing to the ground Sunday night and Monday in Sacramento and knocked out power to 100,000 customers at one time, 190,000 in all.

Sacramento's leading tree expert said the winds out of the southeast caused a lot of stress on the city's tree canopy.

"Trees become accustomed to a certain environment, including the direction that the wind is coming from," said Kevin Hocker, Urban Forester for the city of Sacramento. "When they're not used to it, they don't really have a defense mechanism for that and they're more susceptible to being thrown."

Large old elm trees in Southside Park and McKinley Park snapped in two.

"I heard a thud,” said William Greenfield, who lives near Southside Park, “and we had a pretty good ‘Crack!’”

An elm that was knocked down Sunday in Sacramento's Southside Park.Bob Moffitt / Capital Public Radio

Greenfield said power went out for a few seconds after, but then returned almost immediately.

SMUD said more than 300 individual incidents knocked out power to 100,000 customers.As of 2:30 p.m. Monday about 4,000 customers remained without SMUD power.

Also Monday afternoon, PG&E reported seven outages of 50 customers or less.

City crews first worked to clear safety and traffic hazards and will move on to other trees during the next couple of days.

Hocker says the city received 160 calls for tree service, of which 25 were maintained by the city.

Across the street from McKinley Park, Emily Christopher picked up dozens of small branches. She’s worried that one of the large limbs will fall on her car or her house.

“We parked across the street in the one gap in between the two massive trees,” she said, “because we’re terrified that it’s going to hit our car.”

Christopher said she has requested an arborist to check the tree and trim it. She says she is on a waiting list.