Cleaning up winter storms in Santa Cruz County will not be cheap
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“That doesn’t include damages we’ve seen in the cities, or what we’ve seen to the (Santa Cruz) harbor, that alone has about $12 million in damages,” said Santa Cruz County spokesperson Jason Hoppin.
There are five significant roads that the county is trying to get repaired as soon as they can.
“One is Valencia Road, that (closure) led an entire school to move,” said Hoppin. “Soquel San Jose Road is another, which is (a) major alternative to Highway 17.”
Ann Bairer lives off San Jose Road. She understands the street is popular for commuters trying to avoid the mess that is Highway 17 but hopes that even once the road is fixed that drivers try to find another way.
“It’s a challenge for those of us who live here because people are treating this like a freeway and it’s a mountain road,” Bairer said.
The other two roads the county is concerned with are Glenwood Drive and Bear Creek Road. “Every neighborhood in Santa Cruz County has been affected by this. We’ve got a 130 points of damage on roads. There is no neighborhood that has been untouched by this,” added Hoppin.
The county has already declared three natural disasters. It also got some help from Washington D.C. when the state of California asked the government to declare a federal disaster after storms in early January. Now the county would like more help.
“We are working with FEMA. We met with them yesterday for the second time to go over some of the damages, and we need them to get approval on some of these roads so we can go ahead and do the work,” said Hoppin.
The county expects FEMA to cover at least 70 percent of the cost from storms in January. The focus now is all the damage caused in February storms.
