Santa Cruz prepares for Thursday storm
Crews in Santa Cruz are preparing for Thursday’s expected storm by clearing out storm drains.
Mechanical technologist Matt Bauleke is gearing up to go down a water well at one of the city’s six storm water pumping stations.
The stations are designed to take storm water out of Santa Cruz streets and back through the San Lorenzo River.
“Well, we’ve got to get ready. Tomorrow the storm’s coming in and we had checked the station previously (and) discovered that one of the intakes was plugged. So we had to perform a confined space entry to go through and unplug the entry,” said Rome Norman, field crew leader with the City of Santa Cruz Public Works.
Though working inside a water well it might seem a scary task for some, for Bauleke, it’s just another day on the job.
“It’s dark, it’s quiet. Once you’ve done it a few times it’s very routine,” said Bauleke.
Norman says a lot of things have to happen before someone is sent down.
“We have to ensure that the space is safe for human habitation, to go in and perform the work,” says Norman. “There’s a rescuer and a monitoring continuously of the atmosphere while the worker is in that place.”
On Wednesday, crews removed leaves that had blocked the drain, but pollution is another problem they run into far too often.
“Lawn furniture, batteries, tires–you name it. There’s all kinds of stuff that end up in the storm system,” Norman said.
Although it’s their job, cleaning up the pollution is a cause close to Bauleke’s heart.
“On this crew today, three out of four of us are surfers,” he said, “so we definitely have a vested interest in keeping the bay clean and keeping the pollution out of the river.”
