California Gov. Brown asking for $437M for flood repairs

California Governor Jerry Brown laid out his plan to take immediate action to improve flood protection, fix aging transportation and repair overwhelmed water structures.

“The basic core about what government is about, has to focus number one on the basic infrastructure that allows our state to function,” said Brown.

On Friday, Brown announced plans to spend $437 million on flood control and emergency response actions. He wants to redirect $50 million from the state general fund and request a $387 million appropriation from the voter approved water bond.

“The Governor’s plan will certainly help Santa Cruz County,” said John Leopold, Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors.

“We kind of got locked at home for like two days because there were slides,” said Kevin Robinson of Soquel .

A massive slip out on Soquel San Jose Road is just one of 130 damaged roads in Santa Cruz County.

“If we have a really long dry season that’s going to concern me,” said Soquel resident Carolina Avalos . “It’s gonna make me nervous because in the case of a fire we just have one way out of this area.”

The county is facing more than $30 million dollars worth of damage to local roads.

“That’s a scale in which we haven’t seen in over 35 years,” said Leopold. “It’s gonna take us a long time to be able to come up with the money.”

But Santa Cruz County officials said they are aggressively looking for funding.

“We’re hopeful that the state and feds will help pick up a large part of the tab but even in the best case scenario when they pick up 75% of the cost we’re still looking at something like 6-8 million dollars that we’ll need to come up with.”

The governor is also seeking updates on flood inundation maps and emergency action plans along with enhanced dam inspections.