The breach continues to impact surrounding infrastructure: As of 10am Sunday, the northbound lanes of Hwy 1 have been shut down from Salinas Road to Hwy 129 (Riverside Drive).
At 10:30am, the California Highway Patrol shut down the southbound lanes, too.
There is no estimate on when the road will reopen. Visit roads.dot.ca.gov for the latest on road closures.
An estimated 100-foot-wide breach in the Pajaro River Levee has sent floodwaters into the community of Pajaro, forcing the evacuation of roughly 1,700 residents and causing untold damage to the homes, businesses and farm fields in the rural, agricultural community.
On Friday crews were working along the levee, trying to lessen the impact of possible breaches, Monterey County officials said.
The National Guard helps evacuate residents impacted by the Pajaro River flooding. PHOTO: Tarmo Hannula
Despite their efforts, the breach in the levee happened around midnight near Murphy Crossing Road according to Mark Strudley, executive director for Pajaro Regional Flood Management.
It was shortly after midnight on Saturday night that local resident Andreas Garcia and his family got notice to evacuate. The family grabbed what they could but found the shelter at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds full.
“Right now we’re living out of our cars parked here in Watsonville,” Garcia said. “I lived through the flood of ‘95, too. That was a lot worse. Many of us did not want to evacuate because of looting. Last month when people left some had their homes broken into.”
The evacuation site at the Santa Cruz County fairgrounds reached capacity last night, but has since opened up an additional building to accommodate evacuees. Shelter space in Salinas is reaching capacity as officials move to open more.
Capt. Curtis Rhodes of Cal Fire said officials were helping evacuate people all night. By his estimate, dozens of homes and businesses have flooded.
Local agencies along with the National Guard are also on the scene, bringing families and their belongings to safety through the flooded streets of Pajaro.
By 9:30am on Saturday hundreds of people, many of them with young children, swarmed atop the Main Street Bridge between Pajaro and Watsonville, anxious to check on family members and their homes. Streets in the surrounding areas of the Watsonville side of the bridge had turned into a crowded parking lot overnight by evacuees.
Monterey County Supervisor Luis Alejo, who spent Friday warning residents that an evacuation was possible, said that floodwaters reached two feet in some places.
“My heart hurts, because I know the suffering that the residents of Pajaro are going through again,” Alejo said. “Many who endured the 1995 flood, they are now enduring this one.”
Efforts to rebuild the levee to offer protection to the communities on both sides of the Pajaro River have been ongoing for years.
In October, officials from Monterey and Santa Cruz counties and from the City of Watsonville gathered alongside the Levee to celebrate the funding for a $400 million project that will give 100-year flood protection to the area.
The water has slowed, Alejo said, but another atmospheric river storm expected Tuesday is kindling new flooding concerns and will possibly hinder repair work.
“The amount of water is massive, and it’s much worse because of the ground saturation causing more water to run off into the Pajaro River,” Alejo said. “And that’s why I believe the levee could not hold and sustain itself under that pressure that existed in the river.”
Alejo said the evacuation will put an additional strain on the residences and businesses in Pajaro, which were already displaced for eight days in January after a series of atmospheric river storms.
Alejo said he has already urged Monterey County staff to reach out to state and federal officials to request funding necessary to help residents cope in both the near and long-term effects of the flood.
“It’s just unfortunate to see Pajaro go through this once again,” he said. “Now they’re in a worse situation, and we believe it’s going to take months based on experience to get those homes repaired so they can be habitable again.”
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The Monterey Salinas Transit is transporting community members in the evacuation zone to shelters.
These include:
Santa Cruz Fairgrounds, 2061 E. Lake Blvd, Watsonville.
Salinas at Compass Church,10325 S. Main Street.
A temporary evacuation center at the Prunedale Library, 17822 Moro Rd.
Beth McCullough and her son Journey Legen came to the emergency shelter at Cabrillo College in Aptos on Thursday night when the shelter they hoped to stay in Santa Cruz filled up.
Originally from Bakersfield, both are homeless. They were among 10 people who were turned away from other shelters.
“It was really stormy out last night,” McCullough says. “This was such a blessing to have this open up.”
McCullough and Legen sat at a folding table Friday afternoon, eating sandwiches from nearby Erik’s Deli.
They were among roughly 10 people who availed themselves of the shelter Thursday night, where they had access to showers, bottled water, breakfast, and lunch, both provided by nearby Twin Lakes Church.
Darcy Pruitt, managing the shelter, said 45 beds were available. It was set to close Friday at 6pm as Watsonville lifted evacuation orders.
Arnold Granados, 71, stretched out on a cot inside the Crosetti Building at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds as he prepared for a night away from the wind and rain.
“I’ve been homeless for the past six months, so a warm, dry night means a lot,” Granados says.
The Veterans Hall in Watsonville was set to close on Saturday morning. However, Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds is expected to remain open, as evacuation orders for Pajaro were still in effect on Friday afternoon.
The San Lorenzo River stayed two feet below what was predicted, and while the Pajaro River was not expected to reach flood stage, officials were closely monitoring it.
Residents gather on Main Street Bridge on the morning of March 11. The Pajaro Levee reportedly broke. PHOTO: Tarmo Hannula
Waters also flowed onto East Lake Avenue and College Road, both closed. Highways 129 and 152 were also closed, tying up Friday commuter traffic for hours.
More than 1,000 Soquel residents are trapped in their neighborhood after raging waters tore away a huge chunk of Main Street early Friday morning.
According to Santa Cruz County spokesman Jason Hoppin, the damage began early Friday morning. Bates Creek, which flows under North Main Street just north of Pringle Lane, washed away the 6-foot culvert that ran under the road.
County officials called an emergency contractor which began dumping tons of rock into the culvert in hopes of creating a temporary one-lane road.
If that plan works, the road could be open as early as Saturday morning. If not, workers plan to build a temporary bridge, which will take about two days, Hoppin said.
Neighbors trapped beyond the closure are now walking a circuitous path through a neighbor’s property, who was allowing access over a small wooden footbridge.
Roughly 450 homes lie beyond the closure, and about 40 residents who do not have wells were without water Friday. Workers from Soquel Creek Water District are working to restore their service.
Katie Bauer, who lives in Berkeley, was visiting family for the weekend when the road washed out. She is now unsure how she will get back to work on Sunday.
“I’m surprised—this is worse than it was on New Year’s,” she said. “I didn’t think the road would be fully washed out.”
Matt Lucas brought his 3-year-old son Nolan to see the excavator and rock-hauler trucks as they worked to bridge the gap.
“They said it was going to be a big storm and it delivered last night,” he said.
Lucas said that the county had already looked at the culvert after the storms in January.
“It’s a little bit of a bummer that they didn’t see this one coming, or had somebody keep their eye on it,” he said.
Santa Cruz City Manager Matt Huffaker expressed his appreciation for how quickly the County reacted to the incident. While a temporary repair will come soon, he said that a permanent fix is still a ways away.
“Obviously, this is going to be a long-term repair,” he said.
Watsonville officials issued expanded evacuation warnings late Thursday night as floodwaters have shut down numerous streets in the city.
The expanded evacuation warnings include E. Front and White streets south of Riverside Drive, and near the intersection of Green Valley and Holohan roads.
The City of Watsonville issued evacuation orders for several streets west of Corralitos Creek on Thursday night. The evacuated areas include Union, Lincoln and Marchant streets, north to East Lake Avenue.
Roads closed as of Friday morning include:
• East Lake Avenue west of Bridge Street
• Holohan Road near Corralitos Creek
• Green Valley Road at Holohan Road
• Tuttle Street
• Almond Drive
• Cynthia Drive
• Delta Drive
• Vivienne Street
On Thursday night, Watsonville Police drove through Pajaro Village and other areas, announcing mandatory evacuations over the public address system. Watsonville Firefighters continue to patrol the Pajaro Village and Bay Village neighborhoods.
The National Weather Service reported that Ben Lomond has gotten over 5 inches of rain in the last 24 hours. And the rain is still falling.
East Lake Avenue, west of Bridge Street, is closed off due to flooding. PHOTO: Tarmo Hannula
“The band of heaviest rain will move southward towards Santa Cruz and Monterey mid-morning,” the weather service predicted. “Once this band of convection reaches the Big Sur Coast and the Santa Lucia Mountains, chances for very efficient rainfall become high due to the orientation of the warm conveyor belt of moisture.”
The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office issued an evacuation warning for residents in low-lying areas, including parts of Soquel, Paradise Park and the area around Aptos Creek that could see flooding.
Storm drains in Pajaro Village are backed up and overflowing. PHOTO: Tarmo Hannula
Meanwhile, FEMA sent an email stating, “Disaster Recovery Centers in Watsonville and Santa Cruz proper are closed today due to the weather conditions.”
Los Tigres del Norte: Historias Que Contar is the story of the Norteño band who came to San Jose in the 1960s with not much more than the clothes on their backs and ballads about farmworkers, immigration and narco-violence. Since their arrival, the group has sold over 60 million records and won six Grammys and 12 Latin Grammys.
The Los Tigres screening is co-presented by the Mexican Consulate of San José and UCSC Chancellor Cynthia Larive. There will be a Q&A with director Carlos Perez Osorio, whose Netflix series “The Taco Chronicles” continues to grow in popularity worldwide.
Saturday, March 11, at 7pm at the Mello Center.
Frontera Collection Curator and DJ Juan Antonio Cuellar will host an after-party with selections from the 32,000 Spanish-language songs digitized and preserved by UCLA’s Chicano Studies Research Center—funded by a $500,000 grant from the Los Tigres del Norte Foundation with support from the Bay Area’s Arhoolie Records.
Saturday, March 11, 9pm at El Alteño Restaurant
Sansón & Me is an internationally-acclaimed, award-winning documentary about an unusual friendship between a young immigrant caught up in California’s criminal justice system and his court interpreter. Director Rodrigo Reyes will present the film, followed by a Q&A.
Saturday, March 11, 1pm at the Mello Center
Santos: Skin to Skin is a portrait of seven-time Grammy nominee John Santos, a “keeper of the Afro-Caribbean flame,” who connects the drum rhythms to past and present struggles for social justice and cultural identity. Filmmakers Katryn Golden and Ashley James will be on hand to discuss their award-winning film.
Saturday, March 11, 4pm at the Mello Center (co-presented by Kuumbwa Jazz of Santa Cruz)
“After all we’ve been through over the past three years, we wanted to make this year’s festival free and accessible to everyone on a donation basis,” WFF co-founder and executive director Consuelo Alba says. “This is possible thanks to our generous sponsors and supporters who truly understand our vision.”
“We still have a lot to get through overnight,” Garcia says.
The city of Watsonville late Thursday issued evacuation orders for several streets west of Corralitos Creek at risk for flooding in advance of storms expected Thursday night.
The evacuated areas include Union, Lincoln and Marchant streets, north to East Lake Avenue.
Just half an inch fell on Thursday, but the already saturated ground has sent much of the water into the San Lorenzo River–which is already seeing a sharp rise–raising new flood concerns. And several more inches are expected over the next 18 hours, he says.
“We’re already seeing that churn up, just with half an inch of rain up in the mountains,” he says. “So that just speaks to how wet the soils already are, that they cannot absorb any more moisture.”
Soquel Creek was beginning to rise Thursday afternoon, and officials will monitor that, along with Corralitos Creek and the Pajaro River, which is not expected to reach flood stage.
In addition, winds are expected to knock over trees across the county, Garcia said.
Garcia’s message to the community is to heed evacuation orders if they come and to protect yourself as much as possible.
“If you haven’t taken preparations by now to get yourself to a safe location or to harden your structure, it’s probably too late at this point,” he says.
County officials issued evacuations for several areas of unincorporated Santa Cruz County. Still, Undersheriff Chris Clark says there is a “high likelihood” that those warnings could transition to orders overnight.
The fourth concert in New Music Works’ 44th season—sponsored by Roland and Pat Rebele— “Listening to the Land” offers an all-star evening of innovative work by composers who soar beyond musical norms. Featured are the 2022 Pulitzer Prize-winning composition “Voiceless Mass” by Raven Chacon—the first Native American to win a Pulitzer Prize in Music—and “The Light Within” by Pulitzer Prize-winning musician John Luther Adams, a sonic exploration inspired by the composer’s many decades living in the Arctic.
With Santa Cruz composer Michael McGushin conducting, the work of Chacon and Adams will be joined by “Blue Green Hill,” composed by England’s celebrated opera composer and concertmaster Judith Weir. Also on the program are two commissioned world premieres, “Continua” by Ben Dorfan and “Prologue—The Nightingale” by McGushin. Dorfan completed his doctorate in music composition at UCSC; he and McGushin are in demand throughout the Bay Area
Listening to the Land is among the contemporary music events that invite the composer into the hall for a pre-performance chat. Chacon’s pre-concert remarks may prove enlightening for those struggling with his new music’s a-harmonic aspects. A much-honored world performer and composer of visual and sonic artwork, Chacon was commissioned by the renowned Kronos Quartet to compose for their “Fifty for the Future” project. Noted for creating genre-crossovers intersecting video and sound, Chacon’s 11-minute award-winner, composed for pedal organ, is surrounded by bells, crotales, clarinets, timpani and strings; it represents one of the most exciting directions in contemporary sound and music design. Starkly contrasting dynamics often create the spiritual resonance of his work—timpani juxtaposed with bells and the pure oscillating pitches of sine tones, for example, as in “Voiceless Mass,” the piece chosen for this concert.
“One of the great wonders of music is that it’s so physical and yet so ephemeral,” Adams has said of his environmentally textured compositions. “I want to have it both ways at once.” The layered dreaminess of his work for untraditional soundscapes explores and probes this contradiction inherent within the formal heart of new music.
“The Light Within” is scored for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, vibraphone and electronic aura. Adams’ sonic poetry is nuanced yet grand, massive as the geologic landscapes that inspired them.
Bay Area musicians flutist Lars Johannesson, violist Kaethe Hostetter, bassist Stan Poplin, keyboardist Vlada Moran and percussionist William Winant will be joined by the New Music Works ensemble.
Chacon will join Dorfan in a pre-concert chat at 6:30pm, moderated by NMW founder and artistic director Phil Collins.
Today, the storm could cause severe flooding throughout the Central Coast, with 3 to 4 inches of rain expected in Watsonville.
Residents could see as much as 5 inches and 8 inches in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Meteorologist Brayden Murdock says the already saturated soil could mean trouble for areas hit by the January and February atmospheric river storms.
“Be prepared,” he says. “If you saw flooding in January, be prepared for flooding again from these events that are coming through.”
The Salinas and Carmel rivers will see high crests; Santa Cruz County officials say that the Pajaro River is not expected to crest.
Rainy conditions will persist throughout the weekend. On Monday, a cold front is expected to bring another inch of rain.
“It’s going to be a while before we get all this rain out of our system, and that can cause those river flooding conditions to increase,” Murdock says.
