It was the worst storm in decades. In just 24 hours, Santa Cruz received 3.16 inches of rain, shattering the 1957 record of 2.49 inches, while parts of the county saw as much as 10 inches of rain.
It was the worst storm in decades. In just 24 hours, Santa Cruz received 3.16 inches of rain, shattering the 1957 record of 2.49 inches, while parts of the county saw as much as 10 inches of rain. All across the county, residents dealt with flooding, downed power lines, fallen branches blocking main arteries, and the greatest danger of all—mudslides, exacerbated by the Lockheed Fire this past summer.
After one resident was trapped in her Eureka Canyon Road because of a mudslide, county authorities ordered 80 nearby homes to evacuate. On Devil’s Slide, another mudslide resulted in a fatal car crash, killing an elderly driver.
Power failures affected homes and schools, with Pajaro Valley students forced to go without electricity throughout a good part of the day. The most surreal result of electrical failures, though, may have been the Santa Cruz County Courthouse on Ocean Street. Though they lost power, the judges decided to carry on with their business, using natural light, and when that was no longer possible, with lanterns.
For a time commuters taking Bear Creek Road home from Silicon Valley to San Lorenzo Valley were able to negotiate the detritus of tree limbs, pebbles, and mud that cluttered the road. That all came to a stop, however, when a falling tree took down a power line east of Lanktree Road.
The stormy weather is expected to ease today, and the rest of the week is predicted to be mostly dry.
Read more at the Santa Cruz Sentinel, KSBW, the Mercury News, NBC Bay Area and ABC 7.
