Santa Cruz County chipping away at storm-ravaged roads

According to Santa Cruz County Public Works, there’s about $114 million in storm damage and 232 sites that need repairs across the county following winter storms earlier this year. The county said repairs could take up to seven years to be completed.

“We are fast tracking some of these projects, some of the major arterioles that parallel Highway 17, ” said John Presleigh, Director of Santa Cruz County Public Works.

Projects include Soquel-San Jose Road which dropped 15 feet, Bear Creek Road and Valencia Road, where crews are working to put a new culvert and temporary bridge in place.

“I think there’s an absolute need for sides of the roads to be repaired, and for the sinkholes to be repaired,” said Aptos resident Richard Oxman.

“It slows everything down, a lot of stop time,” said Ron Blanchette of Aptos. “Coming and going it’s unpredictable if you’ve got an appointment.”

While crews are cleaning up crumbled roads, slides and washouts as fast as they can, officials said things are not moving as fast as they’d hoped. They are still looking for local money. They’re also working with the Federal Highway Administration and FEMA to fund the repairs.

“FEMA is probably overwhelmed this year,” said Presleigh. “Of the three declared events we’ve only met on the first declared event and that’s January 3rd-12th. We have two other declared events and FEMA has to come back and look at those projects as well.”

Public Works said they’re also looking into hiring consultants, conducting environmental reviews and taking competitive bids for storm damage projects.

“Please be patient with us,” said Presleigh. “We are doing whatever we can to move as fast as possible to move these projects.”

Santa Cruz Public Works is hoping to meet with FEMA in the next couple of weeks.

Officials said the bridge on Valencia Road should be complete by July.