Santa Cruz County constructs temporary road for Mountain Charlie slide amid FEMA funding delays

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, Calif. (KION-TV) — The county is seeking additional funding from FEMA for long-term repairs.

Recently, FEMA announced that it has temporarily run out of money to fund new disaster repairs.

"There were a number of projects in the works that they said we're going to do once we get the FEMA funding, and that they had already gone through the process of doing the FEMA applications," Daniel Paduano a resident since 2006 said. "They were, you know, waiting to get money to repair sections of our road that have been covered in literally trash bags since 2017 and now we're, you know, that money's not coming, so now we'd like to know how they plan to fund those repairs."

"Santa Cruz County has a lot of issues on their roads,I really feel like there's a lot of areas in Santa Cruz County that will be impacted by FEMA," Debbie Robinson a resident for 15 years said. “It's going to impact us a lot because rainy seasons are only getting worse each winter, and therefore there's a lot more damage on the roads." "I feel like our whole county as a whole will be severely impacted without FEMA."

This temporary road will provide access to residents while the county secures more permanent road repair funding.

The temporary road will act as a foundation for the new road once it’s built.

“Now we will be able to have a temporary road to be able to go to school and work," Robinson said. "With a lot less commute time, a lot less stress." "We'll actually be able to drive to our homes instead of, you know, walking from our homes to the slide and crossing over.

The county has allocated about 500,000 dollars from measure d funds to build this temporary road, which was approved by voters in 2016.

The county says that next week construction crews will be taking all the extra gravel out.

Also, County officials are considering installing solar power walls to the permanent road.

"This road will actually be a single lane stretch of roadway that will have gates on each end," Tiffany Martinez Departmental Communications Officer said. "It will be installed in case there's an emergency or a forecasted large storm event." The main intention of this road is really meant to serve local residents and emergency personnel only but it's not designed to handle a lot of traffic."

County officials are emphasizing that the private driveway, not intended for oversized or commercial vehicles and will not be repaired during this temporary road repair.

"I talked to one of the neighbors last night, and they confirm that the propane truck still cannot get to them. so we're going on six months of them not being able to be serviced," Robinson said.

There is no timeline for when a permanent road will be built with FEMA funding.

This also may impact whether FEMA fund allocation will complete a repaired roadway.

There is a full road closure during the construction hours of 8am to 6pm. There will be a half an hour passage time from noon until 12:30pm for residents to pass through. 

County officials are asking residents to only utilize the road before 8 am, for that 30-minute window at noon, and then after 6pm.