The Pajaro River levee breach caused extensive water damage to all 10 of Pajaro Middle School’s buildings, including destroying all of the floors. While they continue to assess damages, school officials expect they’ll also have to replace many of the walls due to mold. They hope to start construction early next year and reopen the school to students by the 2024-25 school year.
South County
Posted inLatest News
Piecemeal approach to Pajaro aid leaves farmworkers, community straining to move forward
More aid to the residents of Pajaro is being patched together, but the gaps in help and communication are complicating post-flood recovery efforts. More than 100 people remain at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds shelter as Pajaro evacuees have scattered throughout the area, seeking temporary housing. Meanwhile, many farmworkers’ jobs are in limbo as the flooded fields prevent work and have caused almost $50 million in farm loss, says Santa Cruz County Farm Bureau president Dennis Webb.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Undocumented families in Pajaro need support: FEMA should not operate like an insurance company
Watsonville resident Takashi Mizuno is worried about his neighbors in Pajaro, many of whom lost everything to the storms and flooding. He doesn’t speak Spanish, but has been bringing his neighbors lemons from his tree as a gesture of goodwill and solidarity. “Lemons are my way of connecting,” he says. He also is trying to deliver an important message to undocumented Pajaro families with a child born in the U.S.: Apply for FEMA help. Apply again if you get rejected. And FEMA, he insists, is “mistreating” people by not handling applications fairly.
Posted inUncategorized
How I Got My Job: El Sistema’s Isabelle Tuncer on leading a nonprofit: ‘My advice is to dream big’
Isabelle Tuncer, executive director of nonprofit organization El Sistema Santa Cruz, spoke with Lookout about being involved in the nonprofit sector, how organizations like hers can act as first responders to support those in crisis, and the effects of the Pajaro floods on students and families.
Posted inLatest News
Padilla, Panetta promise to ‘pressure’ pace of Pajaro levee project
U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla and Rep. Jimmy Panetta visited the banks of the Pajaro River on Wednesday in an effort to get the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers moving faster on not only repairs to the levee whose failure flooded the town of Pajaro in March but also the long-promised levee overhaul. The Corps is aiming to finish emergency repairs by the fall, and to break ground on a long-promised $400 million upgrade by summer 2024.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
We owe it to Pajaro to help: ‘If Pajaro does not exist, what are we going to do?’
Eloy Ortiz, special-projects manager for Regeneración Pajaro Valley Climate Action, has tried to help farmworkers and others in Pajaro recover after disastrous flooding forced thousands to evacuate and left a yet-unknown number of people and families homeless. He recently walked through Pajaro, talking to people and trying to assess their needs. Here, he recreates that walk for us and helps us see the need, the disenfranchisement and the disconnect in aid. “Farmworkers are humble and don’t advocate for themselves and that’s why we at Regeneración do the work,” he writes.
Posted inLatest News
How a Pajaro Middle School teacher and her students are navigating recovery after Pajaro River levee breach
More than 400 students from Pajaro Middle School are now learning in makeshift classroom setups at Watsonville’s Lakeview Middle after their school flooded in March. “I find myself just feeling guilty that I’m trying to make the situation feel normal,” said Ebelin Mata, who teaches sixth and seventh graders. “When it’s not.”
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
‘It’s undignified’: Pajaro residents march to voice frustration, call for more help
Close to 200 people marched through Pajaro on Thursday to the bridge separating the Monterey County agricultural town from Watsonville, on the Santa Cruz County side of the Pajaro River. They voiced frustrations at what they say is a slow response and lack of help after the March 11 failure of the river’s levee flooded Pajaro and left many homes damaged or uninhabitable. Here’s what Lookout’s Kevin Painchaud saw and heard.
Posted inLatest News
Newsom asks Biden to declare a major disaster in Santa Cruz, Monterey counties and others
The failure of the Pajaro River levee on March 11, putting 33,000 people under evacuation orders or warnings and flooding a largely low-income farmworker community, offered yet another generational disaster for the Central Coast this winter.
Posted inLatest News
Pajaro Valley Pride, Fruition Brewing host fundraiser for Pajaro farmworkers
Watsonville’s Fruition Brewing will be the scene Sunday as Pajaro Valley Pride puts on a drag and burlesque show as part of relief efforts for farmworkers affected by the catastrophic flooding that followed the Pajaro River levee failure. The fundraiser also like a raffle for prizes including gift cards for Mentone, Lupulo and Pacific Cookie Company and a tasting experience at Big Basin Vineyards.