As many as 28 homes were left isolated and without power Monday morning after a massive mudslide buried a large section of Nelson Road under several hundred feet of large rocks and mud.
Located in an unincorporated area outside the Scotts Valley city limits, Nelson Road is the only road – aside from a rugged fire road that is inaccessible to vehicles without four-wheel-drive – in or out of the rural community that also includes Ruins Creek Road.
Scotts Valley Fire District Battalion Chief Tim Theilen said that no one had been injured in the slide and estimated that between 20 and 28 homes are now “completely isolated.”
Nelson Road resident Jackie Maurer was returning from a doctor’s appointment a little after 10 a.m. when she noticed the hillside had begun to slip.
She stayed nearby and caught the scene on her iPhone as a trickle of stones and mud morphed into an avalanche of boulders and trees – completely burying the roadway near a large grouping of mailboxes.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Maurer said. “It’s a really cool thing to witness – it’s so powerful.”
Most of her neighbors, Maurer said, were at work when the slide took place and would most likely discover the blocked roadway as an unpleasant surprise waiting for them Monday evening.
“I don’t know if any of us will be able to go home,” she said.
Tom Walsh was also observing the damage from the slide.
“I’ve lived here since 1983,” he said, “and this has never been a trouble spot before.”
Greg Jones, a road designer with the Santa Cruz County Department of Public Works, said that the slide was “one of the biggest I’ve seen since the 1989 earthquake.”
Since the hillside was still moving on Monday afternoon, there was no timetable for cleanup efforts to begin at the site of the slide.
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