Excerpt:
Hundreds of homes in the Santa Cruz region were damaged by flooding and wind. Weary residents are steeling themselves for even worse conditions this week.
A barrage of powerful storms has surprised residents across Northern California with an unrelenting period of extreme weather stretching over weeks, with only small intervals of dryness. These storms have toppled trees, washed out streets and knocked out power for hundreds of thousands, but they have been particularly devastating to the Santa Cruz region, where prolonged rain and wind have combined with the unique topography to inflict recurring damage…
“We’re very concerned,” said Dave Reid, the director of the Santa Cruz County Office of Response, Recovery & Resilience. “As you get more and more of these rain events piling on top of each other, our mountains literally begin to melt, and we get more landslides and damage to our infrastructure.”
Mr. Reid said the unrelenting nature of the storms, just days apart from one another, was exhausting emergency responders and impeding the county’s efforts to assess damage and begin repairs.
“We really consider this disaster to be the cumulative effect of all of these events in such a short time frame,” he said…
