Infrastructure slowly being restored in Santa Cruz mountain towns

BOULDER CREEK, Calif. (KION) This week the communities devastated by the CZU Lightning Complex are full of crews working to restore the infrastructure destroyed in the fires. PG&E crews are beginning to restore power and replace the dozens of downed power lines in towns like Boulder Creek and Bonny Doon.

Santa Cruz County Public Works is checking on road ways and ensuring its safety before more evacuations are lifted. Tree crews are busy picking up fallen trees and trimming trees that were badly burnt and could be a danger to the public.

“I’m going to guess there are thousands of thousands of trees that are hazardous and will need to be taken down,” County of Santa Cruz Public Works Director Matt Machado said.

Public works estimates there’s between $70-$100 million to come in damage repairs for the county.

3,500 ft. of guard rail is wiped out. Two bridges will have to be replaced, including Swanton bridge over Mill Creek, and about 400 signs have melted away.

“If you can imagine driving these mountain roads at night, and if there wasn’t those curve signs you wouldn’t know where that curve is. You never think about it. We take that stuff totally for grant it,” Machado said.

Access to areas is providing other challenges for the dozens of PG&E crews.

“We’ve identified over 600 work locations so far, which is either a pole or other piece of equipment that’s been damaged," PG&E spokesperson Denny Boyles said. "We’ve started the work, but we don’t have an estimate yet on when we’ll be able to restore those customer's power.”

The San Lorenzo Valley Water District has a 'do not drink' and 'do not boil' order north of Ben Lomond until it's determined if burned piping contaminated the valley’s water source. Meanwhile Davenport lost its supply of waste water when 15,000 feet of piping melted.

Machado says crews will be fixing the damages from this disaster for a long time to come.

“I could see us continuing to respond to trees and all of these issues for weeks, but the re-build is probably at the magnitude of year, years,” Machado said.

More than 13,000 people are still evacuated from their homes. There is still no clear estimate on when people who live in the hardest hit areas will be able to return home, according to Cal Fire.