Longtime residents, local officials and activists say a history of disinvestment and marginalization has left Pajaro especially vulnerable to flooding.
by local and state governments, which came to see Pajaro as a politically unimportant home for farmworkers, most of whom are migrants from Mexico, and treated it as “a hinterland for the commercial and political centers” in the wealthier parts of the region, one researcherThe U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the federal government’s leading flood control agency, built the levees along Pajaro River in the late-1940s using surplus material from World War II.
“What’s so infuriating is this community has long known these levees are insufficient for wet years in California,” said Danielle Zoe Rivera, a University of California at “We had all this positive momentum,” said Mark Strudley, executive director of the recently-formed Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency. “The real unfortunate part about this, other than this devastation of the community, is the community losing hope in the process and being reminded of the vulnerability they’ve always carried.”
His family of five had no time to pack. Vaca picked up his 7-year-old daughter and they piled into his truck, without shoes or a change of clothes. Vaca, 45, works in nearby strawberry fields and said he hasn’t received any support from the government, aside from a voucher that allowed his family to stay in a hotel for a couple days.
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