Salinas city leaders preparing for possible El Nio

Ahead of what could be a potentially devastating El Nio winter, the city of Salinas is trying to do to what it can to mitigate the damage. During a news conference on Monday, Mayor Joe Gunter and Salinas Fire Chief Edmond Rodriguez laid out preventative measures as well as shared some of their frustrations getting the work done.

“Several months ago the mayor asked me, ‘Chief, are we ready if we flood?'” Salinas Fire Chief Edmond Rodriguez recalled, “And unfortunately, the answer is ‘no.’ We are no more prepared than we were in ’95 or ’97.”

Flooding those years caused millions of dollars in damage to the Central Coast, destroying acres of crop fields and hundreds of homes and businesses. The historic crest of the Salinas River hit March 1995 at over 30′. Current predictions show this El Nio could pack a punch like the 1997-98 winter, with the rainiest months being December through March.

“At 30 feet which is flood stage,” Chief Rodriguez explained, “The entire lower Salinas Valley will have disastrous flooding. The entire city is in danger of flooding. Most of Castroville, again, will flood. All roads near the Salinas River will be impassable. Many of the communities up and down the valley will be islands.”

As more models point to an El Nio winter, city leaders want to be prepared for a worst case scenario. Fire crews are going to start water rescue training in the coming months.

“Water is the strongest force on the earth, next to wind in terms of damage and probability of causing damage,” Chief Rodriguez said. “I can’t emphasize enough how strong and how dangerous moving water is.”

Public Works crews will be inspecting equipment and cleaning out storm drains, while Cal Trans is in charge of clearing the underbrush at bridges like the one along Davis Road. Clearing the riverbanks is proving to be difficult for landowners along the river.

“The work itself is very minimal,” said Norm Groot with the Monterey County Farm Bureau. “It’s been performed in the past, so we have those records and understand how much that work is going to cost and what’s involved and it could ideally be done in a short period of time too. It’s just getting to that point where the permits and extremely expensive and the consultants to write the applications for the permits. All those things, the modeling. It’s a very expensive process to get the permits.”

In fact, even the city of Salinas is finding its a lengthy process.

“Because of the process,” Salinas Mayor Joe Gunter explained, “I think the soonest we could get one if we follow the current process is May. A little after the flood comes if El Nio strikes. They have a way of doing an emergency cleanup, but that’s only when the floods are coming, which is a little late.”

If the predictions come true, our ag industry would see a substantial hit with ramifications country, perhaps worldwide.

“This doesn’t impact just the city of Salinas or Monterey County as a whole,” Chief Rodriguez said. “We grow 80% of our leafy green vegetables. That’s America’s food supply. If we’re flooding here, I guarantee the Central Valley will also be flooding. That’s 60% of our fruits and vegetables. And that’s our food supply. If that’s not a national security issue, I really can’t determine what is.”

According to the Monterey County Far Bureau, the 1995 agriculture loss reached $230 million. Today, it could be anywhere between half a billion to a billion dollars, with a recovery lasting months.

“Food safety measures have changed in the last decade or more,” Groot said. “And that causes more complexity of actually getting back into the field and replanting.”

The measure Groot was referring to is the ‘Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement,’ created in 2007. After a flooding event, soil and water samples must be tested for contaminants and must be given the all clear for three consecutive months before planting can begin.

City leaders say there’s no reason for neighbors to panic, just be prepared, have a bag packed and have an emergency plan.

Longtime Salinas resident Gloria Moore was at Monday’s press conference. She remembers the devastating floods from two decades ago. At the time, she was a property manager at an apartment complex and had to wake her tenants to alert them.

“A frightening situation for people when they don’t even know its coming,” Moore said.

With the very real possibility of an El Nio winter this year, she’s concerned what an overflowing Salinas River would do to her South Salinas home.

“It is a low lying area,” Moore said. “We have ag fields really close to the end of several of our streets, so if that floods, it floods into our neighborhoods.”

Ray DeLoe is concerned about his neighborhood near Carr Lake. The Sherwood Lake Mobile Home Park, where he now lives, flooded in 1997 and was closed for nearly two weeks.

“That actually just turned into an island and some of the homes were flooded and some of the homes were not,” DeLoe said. “So it’s not a good situation.”

DeLoe says he hopes his neighbors will heed the warning to be prepared.

In the meantime, the city is still working on where to open shelters in case of an emergency and how many would be needed. They are also working on sandbag distribution sites. Get emergency notifications through the county here.

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Ahead of what could be a potentially devastating El Nio winter, the city of Salinas is trying to do to what it can to mitigate the damage.

During a news conference on Monday, Mayor Joe Gunter and Salinas Fire Chief Edmond Rodriguez laid out preventative measures as well as shared some of their frustrations getting the work done. While Public Works and Cal Trans are looking at the city’s infrastructure, farm owners are having a difficult time getting the permits needed to clear the Salinas River.

“The work itself is very minimal,” said Norm Groot with the Monterey County Farm Bureau. “It’s been performed in the past, so we have those records and understand how much that work is going to cost and what’s involved and it could ideally be done in a short period of time too. It’s just getting to that point where the permits and extremely expensive and the consultants to write the applications for the permits. All those things, the modeling. It’s a very expensive process to get the permits.”

News Channel 5 will have more on this story coming up tonight.