Quick Take
We’re still midway through the impact of this storm. “The weather service is saying maybe not as much rain as initially expected, but higher winds,” says Melodye Serino, deputy county chief administrative officer. “So we may not have as much flooding, but we’ll have road problems because trees will come down, debris will get into the waterways.” As dawn breaks tomorrow, we’ll see the extent of the damage.
Road closures are beginning to pile up in North County, evacuation orders have been issued in parts of Watsonville and Capitola, Rio del Mar, Soquel Village, Paradise Park and in the northwest tip of the county, and rain is expected to continue into the late afternoon on Thursday.
High winds and falling power poles and trees remain the chief concern heading into the evening. Wind gusts have reached up to 50 mph in parts of the Santa Cruz Mountains and along the coast.
“The weather service is saying maybe not as much rain as initially expected, but higher winds,” says Melodye Serino, deputy county chief administrative officer. “So we may not have as much flooding, but we’ll have road problems because trees will come down, debris will get into the waterways.”
The San Lorenzo River, which reached 22 feet during the New Year’s Eve storm, is forecasted to only reach 17.5 feet around 1 a.m. Thursday morning. The Pajaro River, which reacts more slowly to rainfall, is expected to peak around 22 feet tomorrow night at 9pm, lower than the 26.5-foot high following the New Year’s Eve storm.
However, these waterways will remain under close watch. Matthew Machado, the county’s public works director, says the models used by the National Weather Service to predict river flooding are built for more major bodies of water and are not as accurate for the smaller rivers of Santa Cruz County.
As of 7 p.m., about 17,000 people were without power across the county, according to Serino. PGE Outage map here: https://pgealerts.alerts.pge.com/outagecenter/
As of 8 p.m., the city of Santa Cruz reported that its lone shelter, at the Civic Auditorium, was nearly full, with 80 people using the space for the night. It’s a similar story in Watsonville, where 72 people were using the shelter as of 8:45pm, with room for only about 15 more people.
—Christopher Neely
