Santa Cruz most vulnerable county in state to landslides, officials say - Santa Cruz Sentinel

Santa Cruz most vulnerable county in state to landslides, officials say - Santa Cruz Sentinel

SANTA CRUZ — Santa Cruz Couty is the most vulnerable county in the state to landslides and is No. 15 of the 3,006 counties nationwide, according to county staff with reference to data recently compiled by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

More than 93% of the county’s total geography is made up of unincorporated regions and, on top of that, it is where more than half of its population resides. But Santa Cruz County Office of Response, Recovery and Resilience Director Dave Reid told the Sentinel that many of the local road networks managed by county and state authorities are built into “extremely dynamic” topography and terrain, rendering them especially vulnerable to disaster impacts.

“The amount of water that falls in our climate-change-induced weather patterns now can oftentimes both exceed the soil’s capacity to carry the water, but also our stormwater network,” said Reid. “And so these failures occur throughout the county and they can cut communities off; they can strand folks.”

The deluge of atmospheric river storms this past winter resulted in numerous landslides across the county with many of the most severe and lasting incidents occurring in the Santa Cruz Mountains. A wave of mud and debris closed a section of Highway 9 from lower Glen Arbor Road to Holiday Lane for months and forced residents to use a temporary detour. In Soquel, a 60-foot breach of the roadway on Main Street temporarily cut off about 450 homes and crews have been working ever since to get it fixed as forecasters warn of another potentially wet winter.

Meanwhile, Reid said county and state crews are focused on identifying the road networks and infrastructure most vulnerable to landslides. County officials and the County Regional Transportation Commission, are developing a Climate Adaptation and Vulnerability Assessment through a grant with Caltrans that aims to evaluate all hazards related to the county-maintained road network and Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line.

Reid said he hopes the report will help the county secure future state and federal grant dollars to improve resiliency.

“It’s challenging. We can’t change the geology here locally; we can’t change the precipitation patterns,” said Reid. “So it’s a little bit of a resilience and mitigation mindset in the future, but also a response in the moment … so we can protect life and property.”

The county’s overall national risk index– a qualitative ranking system designed by FEMA that considers a community’s expected annual loss, social vulnerability and community resilience in the face of disaster impacts – is “relatively high” and sits in the 97 percentile nationwide and 63 percentile in the state, according to FEMA.

Board meeting

These findings, and the increasingly dire financial picture they paint for the county, will be detailed for the Board of Supervisors at its 9 a.m. meeting Tuesday, as officials seek solutions in an era of climate change.

According to the staff report, the county has submitted more than $250 million in FEMA claims since 2017, but has not been reimbursed for more than $159 million or about 63% of that total. That is the equivalent of 75% of the county’s annual discretionary general fund revenue of $210 million, all in unreimbursed claims.

In response to the ballooning issue, the county intends to explore debt financing options until the reimbursements arrive, according to the staff report, and intends to return to the board no later than Feb. 13 to authorize recommended short- or long-term options.

Still, Reid said the FEMA reimbursement process, designed in the 1970s and 1980s, is “ill-equipped” to respond to modern crises. According to Reid, in 2023 there were 25 different $1 billion or more natural disasters in the country, whereas in the 1980s and 1990s it would take five or 10 years to hit such a metric.

“It’s global climate change coming home and landing squarely on local government and community,” said Reid.

If you go

What: Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors meeting.

When: 9 a.m. Tuesday in the board chambers at 701 Ocean St. room 525, Santa Cruz.

How: In person or Zoom at us06web.zoom.us/j/89949240497