In Monterey County, officials estimate that the storms caused more than $75 million in damage to agriculture, with over 20,000 acres of farmland that flooded. That acreage represents about 10% of all irrigated fields in the county.
“There are farming operations and acres that, worst case scenario, may not be able to plant crops this season or, on the other hand, may be able to plant, but they will have a delay,” said Grower-Shipper Association of Central California president Christopher Valadez.
For farmers who saw their fields flooded, they’ll now have to follow specific protocols. That includes testing their soil, water, and irrigation systems for pathogens. That process could cause months of delays for some farmers.
While there has been substantial damage to farms, Valadez says it could have been much worse.
“While the impacts will be severe, for the majority, they did not suffer significant impacts,” Valadez said. “Because the majority of all of acreage in the Salinas Valley was not inundated by floodwater.”
That means there will be minimal strain on the leafy greens market. “We should anticipate there continuing to be a robust produce profile from the Salinas Valley come this spring,” Valadez said.
That means Monterey Bay residents should see their produce aisle stocked full of locally produced romaine, iceberg lettuce, and spinach later this year.
Meanwhile, in the Capitola, the city faces about $2.6 million in damage repairs.
Along the Capitola esplanade, people are hard at work, fixing up the row of restaurants that sit along the ocean. These buildings were heavily damaged during the storm.
City leaders hope the entire esplanade is up and running by Memorial Day weekend.
And just up the road, away from the beach, there is a promising glimpse of back-to-normal.
Gary Hunter is a long-time employee at Mr. Toots Coffeehouse. “We're the first place on this side of the street to open,” Hunter said.
The store wasn’t damaged and is located on the second floor. But it only opened last week because of power outages.
Hunter says customers are starting to trickle back in. “It's about half to three-fourths what it was before, so it's starting to pick back up,” Hunter said. “A lot of people don't know we're open right now.”
Out on the deck at Mr. Toot’s, is a beautiful view overlooking the Monterey Bay. The sun is shining and the ocean is calm. It’s hard to imagine that a violent storm was pummeling this same tranquil coastline just weeks ago.
“We look at it now, and it's like this is so much different than that,” Hunter said. “It's like night and day.”
In the distance is the Capitola wharf, or what’s left of it. The storms tore out a section of the iconic wooden pier that stretches into the ocean.
“We were pretty much at the mercy of that ocean out there,” said Wharf House restaurant owner Willie Case. The restaurant is the only one on the Capitola wharf.
Case says the road to recovery for his business will be much longer, “All we've been told is that we're closed for a good year, if not more.”
When Case spoke with KAZU, he hadn’t even seen his business yet but was planning to visit by boat. Without electricity to power his refrigerators or freezers, all his food has gone to waste.
“I don't know what the stench is going to be like when we get there.” Case said. “ It's been 30 days now, so it's going to be bad.”
Jamie Goldstein is the Capitola city manager and is in charge of organizing the repair work.
“As you can imagine, we have to work with insurance carriers. We have to work with FEMA," Goldstein said. "There's just a lot of folks involved now."
Interestingly enough, the city was already planning to overhaul the wharf this year. Goldstein says they had set aside nearly $10 Million for improvements, but the storm hit first.
“So my hope is that our renovation project is going to be made more resilient by what we've learned with this failure,” Goldstein said.
Goldstein hopes to start repairs by early fall and doesn’t think they’ll be complete until next year.
But there’s a sentiment among the business owners here, that Capitola won’t be at its best until everyone has reopened. With the iconic wharf partially in ruins, it isn’t clear exactly when that version of Capitola will be back again.
