A break in the rain last weekend gave Santa Cruz County and Caltrans crews a valuable window to clear the fallen trees and rock and mud slides from numerous roads and highways, caused by last week’s heavy rains.
Just as streams began subsiding, and homeowners and officials began sorting out damages, more storms at mid-week followed last week’s onslaught and were expected to continue into the weekend.
With an estimate of $6 million or more in damages to county public roads, the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors last week declared a state of emergency and asked Gov. Jerry Brown as well as the California Office of Emergency Services, FEMA and Caltrans, to follow up in support of the emergency declaration.
Those declarations would allow state and federal aid to assist the County is restoring much of the storm damaged roadways. As of mid-week, no word yet.
Fifth District Supervisor Bruce McPherson isn’t waiting. This week he asked that $2 million from Santa Cruz County reserve funds be used to repair three of the most urgent storm damaged roads.
“We cannot wait for the state and federal declarations and that we need to get a heads start on repairing the county road system,” said McPherson.
“This is why we have reserves,” McPherson said. “These roads are critical for our communities.”
The Board of Supervisors is to take up the request at its Jan.24 meeting.
Bear Creek Road, connecting Boulder Creek and Highway 17, had one lane washed out, and Soquel-San Jose Road lost a travel lane several weeks ago in a previous storm event. Both roads serve as alternative routes to Highway 17 and carry traffic volumes in the 4,000 to 8,000 vehicles on an average day.
Both roads see significantly higher volumes when they are used as emergency routes when Highway 17 is closed for any reason.
The section of Bear Creek Road that washed down a hill about a quarter-mile east of Highway 9 will cost an estimated $1.5 million to fix. Soquel-San Jose Road will cost about $350,000 and Cabrillo College Drive will cost an estimated $200,000, based on current estimates from the County Public Works Department.
McPherson said that it will take probably until the end of summer or longer to fully restore both roads, even using emergency reserve funds, because of design requirements, bidding, and construction timelines.
McPherson’s request is expected to be considered by the Board of Supervisors on Jan. 24.
Additionally, Cabrillo College Drive also received significant damage to one lane of travel due a failed drainage system. Cabrillo College has traffic volumes of around 4,000 vehicles a day.
Because Bear Creek Road and Soquel-San Jose Road are considered federal aid routes, the funding for repairs could be partially funded by the federal government, with the local match supplied by the county.
The county would do the work to fix the washout, with the Federal Highway Administration paying up to 75 percent of the repair work, and the county would pay for 25 percent.
