An Alameda County congressman spent the day Thursday looking at some of the damage done by the back-to-back-to-back storms.
From mudslides and flooding, to collapsed roads, Eric Swalwell got a close look at what the storms left behind.
Caltrans reopened parts of Niles Canyon Road from Mission Boulevard in Fremont as well as Main Street in Sunol. All while crews continued to work to clear flooding and erosion in the surrounding areas like in Palamaros Road.
“The power of water is nuts,” said Zubear of Hayward.
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Those who live along the Alameda Creek, like Lori Eckman, are worried how much more damage the area can take.
“Because of all the debris where it is packing up, it pushes the water in a different direction. I’m seeing erosion on the side of the channel that backs up to my house and that side of the channel,” she said.
Swalwell spent the day touring some of the hard hit areas throughout the county, including a street in Hayward where a roadway partially collapsed.
“We are actually left with the worst of both worlds,” said the congressman. “It’s not going to do enough for drought and we are going to suffer more erosion and loss of life.”
And the costs are growing. Swalwell says the storms have already cost Alameda County and parts of Contra Costa County $50 million. Now he is calling on the federal government to help cover more of the cost.
“We are starting to see city, counties and statewide budget shortfalls and so the ability maybe a couple years ago to weather something like this is not the position we are in right now,” he said. “We do have federal dollars that are designated for something like this.”
Alameda County Public Works explains it could take months, or even years, to recover, and explains that repairs will include some modernization to try to prevent future damage.
“We always design for the worst case scenario, those worst case scenarios seem to be worse with the change in global warming, climate, we are having wetter storms, heavier storms is a much shorter period of time,” said John Medlock Jr. of Alameda County Public Works.
Crews said their priority is stabilizing the damage to prevent more damage from happening- but expect to see more of the same as we enter the next storm.
