School district awarded grant to help students affected by Mountain Charlie Road landslide
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (KION-TV) -- The continuing concerns from the long-lasting impacts of a landslide in the Santa Cruz mountains.
People along Mountain Charlie road have had limited access for over eight months.
Now the concern is for kids’ safety getting to and from school as the repairs continue.
A new grant could be helping people in that area.
“They were scared to death," Theresa Bond, trustee, Los Gatos-Saratoga Union High School District said.
That is Theresa Bond, she is talking about students trying to drive around Mountain Charlie road.
The Los Gatos-Saratoga Union High School District has received nearly 93 thousand dollars from the US Department of Education to assist with transportation for students affected.
"These kids, not only they lost power, they lost water, they lost their internet," Bond said. "They were taking cold showers. They were hiking over this this moving earth, carrying groceries and all this stuff in the mud and everything, it was a dangerous situation for them."
With no bus transportation available, school officials are worried about student safety. New drivers are particularly at risk, having to navigate busy lanes on highway 17.
"The high school kids also are new student drivers," Bond said. "I spoke to a couple of them who, because of the work around that they had to drive around." They came out onto highway 17 where they had to cross over one lane of traffic, the southbound lane of traffic to get in one single lane. The turn lane pulled there to then get in the northbound traffic."
Parents like Kathy Goudarzi is hoping this is addressed before something bad happens.
"Taking a left turn on glenn, from tailwind cutoff to highway 17 is very dangerous," Goudarzi said.
Getting anywhere, even to school has been a challenge.
"It would take us an hour and 20 minutes to get to school," Goudarzi said. "He had some time to rest at home, do homework at home, and then you could drive him back down. but with this slide, that was no longer an option. so we had to reduce his activities."
"I think the grant is specially helpful since we're going to have the cyclone coming in and it seems like, we are still going to have atmospheric rivers this year and we don't know how the temporary fix is going to hold," Goudarzi said. "If the roads does give out, again, this could absolutely help the children, especially, you know, their parents who have children in multiple schools."
The funds must be spent by November Fourth of next year.
