Boulder Creek area prepares for more outages as rain approaches Central Coast
BOULDER CREEK, Calif. (KION-TV) -- Santa Cruz County is getting ready for rain in an area that has already seen its fair share of outages in recent weeks.
People in and around Boulder Creek have dealt with multiple power outages, including one as recent as last week that impacted around 9,000 customers.
One woman who has been living in Boulder Creek for 40 years says she has experienced everything from fires, to flooding to outages.
Karen Brown takes care of 3 acres of property in Boulder Creek. Those three acres have over 20 drains Karen cleans out by herself. She's already starting that process in her neighborhood.
"I'm clearing the drain for my neighbor's property, and when that her drain clogs up, then it compromises my house. And during the last storm that completely filled, it caused a landslide and it caused a bunch of my property to be eroded away," she said.
A shovel, a rack, and a wheelbarrow is what Karen uses to clean the drains.
PG&E tells KION what they're doing to prepare for the wet season.
"One of the things we've done in the Santa Cruz area is we've added tree wire. It's this heavily armored overhead wire. It's like a thick jacket that goes over the lines. So this way, if it's some kind of tree or tree branch comes into contact with the line, it's less likely to break and cause a power outage," said Megan McFarland with PG&E.
Other steps they have taken is fault detection, and protection equipment on power lines.
Karen says regardless of the extra measure PG&E is taking you should always be prepared under your roof.
"You clear your gutters, you clear your drain, you make sure you had batteries for your flashlights, make sure your generator is functioning and ready to work. And you have gas," said Brown.
It looks like rain is expected in the boulder creek area on Wednesday. Its a good idea to start clearing your drains before then. Karen says it only takes about 40 minutes to clear out your drains.
PG&E says they have extra crews in the Santa Cruz County area so after a storm hits crews can make repairs as quickly as possible.
If you are in the area and see a downed power line, PG&E says to stay away and call 911.
