#watsonville

#watsonville

(Noah Berger / Associated Press)

It took a major disaster and the prolonged displacement of hundreds of farmworkers, but the small Monterey County community of Pajaro is finally getting the help and attention of federal, state and local lawmakers its residents have sought for decades.On Tuesday, California lawmakers sent a letter to Michael Connor, assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works, urging him to speed construction on a levee that failed earlier this month, flooding the small town, and to provide immediate emergency relief funds to shore up the damaged infrastructure.

An intense atmospheric river storm continued to put pressure on strained levees in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties on Tuesday as officials considered emergency measures to prevent more catastrophic flooding from hitting the already inundated area."The real question today is about manually breaching a section to relieve pressure," said Zach Friend, a Santa Cruz County supervisor whose district includes Watsonville, which is now threatened by the swelling Pajaro River.

Flood warnings were in effect for wide swaths of Northern California as new storms threatened flooding in some regions.Areas of concern
Particular areas of concern are the San Lorenzo River in Santa Cruz County and the Salinas River in Monterey County, the North Bay, Merced County, parts of San Mateo County and Mendocino County.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

The school buses arrived in quick succession, looping past the entrance of the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds and a parking lot packed with cars before stopping near Harvest Building, a low-slung yellow structure usually used for fundraisers.Araceli Telles stood waiting near the gate for her daughters to arrive at the sprawling complex.

As river water gushed through a broken levee, thousands of people in a California farming town were forced to evacuate as their homes were flooded and businesses destroyed.Yet another potential casualty of the powerful rainstorms that drenched coastal California: hundreds of acres of fresh strawberries slated for America's supermarket shelves this summer.

Jessica Sanchez felt awful about the catastrophic flooding that displaced hundreds of people in this Monterey County farm town.She felt worse when she heard families were sleeping in their cars because some of the shelters had reached capacity and they couldn't afford hotels."I have two daughters and I can't imagine having to sleep in a car when it's cold and raining outside," said Sanchez, 34.

CASTROVILLE - Phil's Fish Market and Eatery, the much-savored and favored store and restaurant, relaunched with a soft opening over the weekend at a new location in a historic building more than 150 years old in the heart of Castroville.The two-story building at 10700 Merritt St. is on the corner of Merritt Street and Preston Road, next to the iconic Castroville sign that arches over the roadway.

Capitola train trestle will be incorporated into the Santa Cruz Coastal Rail Trail.Image: Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission
Note: GJEL Accident Attorneys regularly sponsors coverage on Streetsblog San Francisco and Streetsblog California.Unless noted in the story, GJEL Accident Attorneys is not consulted for the content or editorial direction of the sponsored content.

In case you weren't already worried about the risk of falling glass downtown or getting crushed by a tree, here's more not-very-uplifting news about the impact and potential effects of the cold, wet, and generally unpleasant weather that's been hammering the Bay Area and California, generally.The San Francisco Chronicle reports this weekend's upcoming cold snap - which could bring temperatures as low as 32 degrees to parts of the North Bay - could kill off some of this year's grape harvest in certain parts of wine country.

A cyclist pinned under a stolen car was freed with the help of bystanders who rushed to aid officers, California police said.The cyclist became trapped after the driver of a stolen car jumped from the moving sedan and ran when officers tried to pull him over, the Watsonville Police Department said in a Dec. 20 Facebook post.

The wettest areas of the Bay Area got about 2 inches of rain in the storm that arrived Monday night.The following are the 12-hour totals ending at 9 a.m.Tuesday, from the National Weather Service.They are raw numbers, meaning they haven't been quality-checked for accuracy.Location Inches Peninsula & South Bay Los Gatos 1.72 Milpitas 1.46 Mountain View 1.45 Vasona Lake 1.4 Redwood City 1.3 Palo Alto 1.26 Morgan Hill 1.22 San Jose airport 1.18 Spring Valley 1.09 Mount Hamilton 0.9 San Francisco airport 0.84 San Francisco 0.68 Half Moon Bay airport 0.57 East Bay Fremont 1.79 Castro Valley 1.44 Union City 1.42 Dublin/San Ramon 1.37 Hayward airport 1.18 San Leandro Marina 1.11 Mount Diablo 0.91 St. Mary's College 0.91 Concord 0.85 Oakland airport 0.85 Orinda 0.83 Richmond 0.62 Rodeo 0.56 Santa Cruz Mountains Ben Lomond 2.64 Lake Elsman 2.41 Scott Creek 2.33 Davenport 1.7 Mount Umunhum 1.7 Loma Prieta 1.58 Mount Madonna 1.07 Watsonville 1.07 Get Morning Report and other email newsletters Sign Up