Floods blanket Porter Street in Pajaro following the levee breach back in March. Residents have filed claims against local government agencies alleging they could have done more to prevent the floods. (Shmuel Thaler – Santa Cruz Sentinel file)
WATSONVILLE — Approximately 500 residents of North Monterey County and South Santa Cruz County have filed claims against local governments and agencies over what they view as negligence in preventing the devastating floods that occurred in the area between December and March.
The claims were made against Monterey County, Santa Cruz County, the city of Watsonville, the Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency and the Monterey County Water Resources Agency. They are the first step before a civil lawsuit is filed.
The claims argue that the agencies failed “to properly maintain, manage, inspect, supervise, repair and operate Pajaro River, its tributaries and surrounding bodies of water, and all flood control systems, including, but not limited to levees, stormwater pump systems, and other measures that were or should have been put into place to protect against flooding.”
One of the claimants was Watsonville resident Sonia Corrales, who was forced to live in her garage with her parents, children and siblings after the Dec. 31 floods. For three months, they rested on air mattresses while the main portion of the house was being repaired, but when the Pajaro River levee breached March 11, they could not even live in their home and had to take shelter elsewhere, with Corrales moving in with her sister in Aptos.
Corrales said her family was hit hard financially.
“The damage was really bad,” she said. “The insurance did provide support, but it was not enough to fix the home, so it’s been really hard emotionally (and) financially.”
One thing that Corrales felt agencies could have done to prevent the floods was maintain Corralitos Creek and Kelly Lake, something she feels has not been adequately done.
“If you go walk by the levee, you can see the amount of trash and debris from broken trees,” she said. “Of course the levee was gonna overflow, and of course the Kelly Lake was gonna overfill as well when there’s no one that maintains it properly.”
This sentiment was echoed in the claims, which argued that the agencies failed to remove trees, debris and shrubs from the river and surrounding areas.
“The Respondents engaged in conduct that posed an unreasonable risk of harm to claimants by failing to maintain the Pajaro Watershed which thereby caused flooding of the claimants’ properties and businesses,” per the claim. “Respondents’ taking and damaging of claimants’ real and personal property constituted a taking and damaging for a public use and purpose without just compensation.”
The claim also argued that claimants sustained damages such as private property loss, loss of livestock and crops, soil erosion, diminution of property values, increased medical bills and other living expenses.
The claimants are represented by attorneys Brian Kabateck and Marina Pacheco of the Los Angeles law firm Kabateck LLP and Emily Ruby and Sergio Cardenas of the L.A. firm Greenberg and Ruby Injury Attorneys, APC.
Kabateck said the floods were not an isolated incident, citing floods that occurred back in 1995 and 1998.
“We know that there were problems because they had problems in the past,” he said.
Kabateck also felt more modern systems such as pumps could have been added to the sandbar area to clear out debris.
“One thing we’ve heard from these various governmental entities publicly … are statements along the lines of ‘This was a once-in-a-lifetime flood, the rain system was incredible, no one expected this to come,’ and that’s pretty after-the-fact justification,” he said. “That’s the reason you have the flood control systems in the first place is because you have to anticipate these kinds of events. If it’s true, if they had maintained the system, if the debris had been cleaned up, for example, and if modern equipment had been put in place and it still overflowed, then that’s a very different scenario, but here, they didn’t do even the basic fundamental maintenance, and that’s our gripe.”
Kabateck said the governmental entities have 45 days to respond to the claims. If they do not, he said a civil lawsuit would be filed.
Jason Hoppin, a spokesman for Santa Cruz County, said the county had not received a claim related to the flooding as of Monday. Michelle Pulido, spokeswoman for the city of Watsonville, said the city’s legal team was reviewing the claim.
Maia Carroll, spokeswoman for Monterey County, said county officials had not seen the claim as of Monday but passed along a statement from county Public Information Officer Nicholas Pasculli.
“The County of Monterey remains committed to response and long term recovery for the community of Pajaro following this disaster,” he wrote. “We continue to advocate for more resources, such as the recent $20 (million) in assistance from the state, maintaining the presence of our FEMA partners in Pajaro to support community needs and continuing to support sheltering for families who are still not able to return home. Our next steps include the creation of a Pajaro Recovery Task Force which will help direct recovering planning.”
Originally published at Nick Sestanovich