Road cleanup in Santa Cruz County ahead of anticipated storm

“(In the San Lorenzo Valley) we’ll probably be working pretty hard for the next few days,” says Thomas Dunham, who works for the roads department of Santa Cruz County Public Works.

It was another day through the windy, narrow Santa Cruz Mountains. The County Public Works team went from stop to stop, Monday, beginning with a large tree that came tumbling down with the rain, onto Mt. Hermon Road, last week.

“Getting it off the road – making sure the remainder of the tree on the hillside wasn’t going to roll into traffic,” Dunham said.

Many of these roads are prone to minor inconveniences, like what we saw on Lompico Road – fallen branches blocking part of the street. The crew had to halt traffic to clean it up.

But there are also more serious issues, like potential mudslides and accidents. California Highway Patrol tells KION there were six crashes, around Highway 17, last Friday morning alone.

Now the county is ready for the next batch of rain.

Dunham says they will “unplug any culverts that are clogged up. Try and clear any flooded roadways. Take care of any trees that have fallen down.”

After a typical storm, public works crews have shifts that run about 10 to 12 hours. But if they are on call, they’re making sure the mess is gone around the clock, until the job gets done. And the first storms of the season are often the sloppiest.

The oil on the streets begin to come to the surface, along with “all the trees that are potentially leaning. Once they start getting wet and heavy, they are wanting to tip over,” Dunham says.