Santa Cruz County Public Works continues to assess winter storm damage

UPDATE: 6/6/17 6:18 p.m.: Every time Claudia Parrish drives by Valencia Road and Siesta Drive, she takes a peek at what used to be the path that connected her to the outside world.

“Oh yeah, we’ve been watching this since our road was first blocked,” Parrish said.

On Tuesday, Melody Kent took her son to the same spot.

“I want to check out kind of all the equipment and the process of what’s going on because we are really anxious to get back to school,” Kent said.

Valencia Elementary School has been closed since February, when winter storms overwhelmed a culvert, causing the route to school to collapse.

Now, crews are working to put in a temporary bridge to help people get around.

“I think it’s going remarkably fast considered what bureaucracies can do to stall projects. We’ve been really lucky,” Parrish said.

But there are still more than 200 roads in need of repair that the county said could take years.

“We have two stop signs on this road, where there are washouts further up the road, that I’m hoping will also get repaired because those people up there could really be affected,” Parrish said. “I understand this next winter could even be worse.”

Before crews get to work, the Federal Emergency Management Agency needs to tour every road and approve federal funding because the county said it doesn’t have $110 million to pay for it. County officials say it could take years for things to go back to normal.

“If we go do a project and they decide that we did something extra, like we put in an extra retaining wall that we didn’t need or something like that, they could come to us and say, ‘No, you are not getting that money for it.’ And, no, we just don’t have that kind of money sitting around,” said Jason Hoppin, Santa Cruz County communications manager.

Some of the major roads taking priority are Soquel San Jose Road, Valencia Road and Gleenwood Drive.
Public Works is hiring more people for its disaster relief team to help find contractors to speed things up.

PREVIOUS STORY: Santa Cruz County has endured the worst winter storm damage the area has ever seen in terms of dollar amount, according to Santa Cruz County Public Information Officer Jason Hoppin.

County officials have estimated that $110 million will be needed to repair all the damage done during the 2016-2017 winter storms.

A disaster relief team has been established to help bring more people on board to find qualified contractors for the jobs.

Officials said roads that need minor repairs will have to wait longer.

KION’s Linda Zhang will have the details on just how long residents will have to wait to see the damage fixed.