“When a disaster comes, chefs have a great opportunity to step up and help out the community,” Anthony Kresge said of the event he organized with fellow chefs from Capitola and Soquel. “It was good to see an event like that after all the disasters and the pandemic — a celebration of community.”
Storms 2023: Road to Recovery
Posted inCoast Life
‘Managed retreat is on the table’: City discusses West Cliff’s future, will explore expanding one-way
Santa Cruzans could soon see West Cliff Drive become a one-way street all the way from Bay Street to Woodrow Avenue as city officials begin to seriously consider implementing a managed retreat strategy for the iconic stretch of coastal road.
Posted inLatest News
Santa Cruz Mayor Fred Keeley on his ‘intentional’ avoidance of cameras during January’s storms
Even as politicians from President Joe Biden on down flocked to tour storm-ravaged areas of Santa Cruz County, Fred Keeley steered clear of the photo ops, with Santa Cruz’s mayor saying he’s keeping his powder dry for when the city needs a strong advocate during the rebuilding phase.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
I’m just a pizza guy, but I got to go to the State of the Union: Here’s what happened
Chuck Hammers, owner of Pizza My Heart, got an inside view of our government last week, when he sat near Jill Biden, Bono and the parents of Tyre Nichols during the State of the Union address Tuesday. Hammers’ Capitola Village restaurant sustained close to $500,000 in damages during the January storms, and he and other restaurants had visits from Gov. Gavin Newsom, Rep. Jimmy Panetta and even President Joe Biden. Here, he gives us a peek into the “room where it happens” and his personal “Where’s Bernie” moment.
Posted inLatest News
Amid continued repairs, Highway 9 set to reopen March 4
Closed for more than a month by a mudslide between lower Glen Arbor Road and Holiday Lane in Ben Lomond, Highway 9 should be back open to traffic in a few weeks assuming weather conditions remain favorable, Caltrans says.
Posted inLatest News
Circus returning to help local storm victims
After wowing Santa Cruz County audiences just before January’s storm barrage hit, Mendocino-based Flynn Creek Circus is set to bring its big top back to the Capitola Mall in March to benefit relief efforts.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Letter to the editor: After storm evacuation response, a thank-you to Metro heroes
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here. To the editor: Now that the devastating atmospheric storms of December and January are behind us, I want to thank the Santa Cruz Metro drivers, dispatchers and supervisors who stepped up to evacuate people from flood- and mudslide-prone […]
Posted inLatest News
Preparing for ‘weather whiplash’ focus of county’s latest water resources status report
The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors recently approved the latest Water Resources Status Report, and while the report comes out every year, this one focused heavily on preparing for the effects of climate change and “weather whiplash,” which includes heavy rains like the storm systems that hit in January.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Three tense years lie ahead as Watsonville residents await the Pajaro levee project’s fixes
Mark Strudley of the new Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency hasn’t been on the job for long and hasn’t even had time yet to build a staff or find an office in Watsonville. The longtime Boulder Creek resident lays out the race against time to build the levee project before the next devastating storms. There are many hurdles, including agency coordination.
Posted inLatest News
Storm damage at Soquel mobile home park unearths decades-old county plan to remove it from flood plain
Santa Cruz County was so worried about damaging floods harming the Old Mill Estates mobile home park that a 1990 master plan called for the government to buy the property and turn it into a flood buffer for Soquel Village. Why didn’t that happen?