Gavin newsom

The price tag for all this mayhem – road repairs, damaged homes, lost crops – won’t become clear for months. But the early estimates are sobering. In the Salinas Valley region known as America’s Salad Bowl – a key growing hub for the U.S.’s supply of lettuce, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower and artichokes – crop damage could climb as high as $500 million and the broader economic impact to the region could reach $1.2 billion, said Christopher Valadez, president of the Grower-Shipper Association of Central California, a trade group that represents farmers, processors and exporters in the region.

Officials in hard-hit Santa Cruz County, which has seen roads washed out and a popular ocean pier destroyed, estimate $88 million in public infrastructure damage and $49.5 million in crop damage from the storms so far.

Tuesday’s damage comes in addition to the destruction California sustained in January, when three weeks of intense rainfall triggered floods and mudslides across the state, closing roads and homes. Moody’s RMS, a risk-modeling service, estimated the statewide cost from floods and infrastructure damage in January to be $5 billion to $7 billion. AccuWeather put its own estimate far higher at $30 billion.

It’s a dramatic reversal of fortune. After three years of punishing drought, California since late December has endured 12 “atmospheric rivers,” weather systems that channel intense plumes of moisture from hundreds of miles across the ocean and can carry as much water as the Mississippi River at its mouth. Tuesday’s storm added to the river a “bomb cyclone,” a rapidly intensifying low-pressure system that fired up winds and produced a hurricane-like eye that rolled directly over San Francisco. Across the Bay in Oakland, tropical storm-force wind gusts of 39 to 73 miles per hour (63 to 117 kilometers per hour) were reported for seven consecutive hours, according to AccuWeather.

“The impacts from the event resembled that of a land-falling strong tropical storm – likely the closest San Francisco residents will ever come to experiencing that weather phenomenon,” said AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter.

Downtown San Francisco has received 30.69 inches (78 centimeters) of rain since Oct. 1, which is 11.35 inches above normal, according to the National Weather Service. Los Angeles has received 25.74 inches in the same period, 13.27 inches above normal. On Tuesday, the city got 1.43 inches, a record for the date.

In San Francisco, the city closed off part of busy Mission Street downtown after window glass fell from a nearby tower. Near the city’s baseball park, a historic bridge was closed to vehicle traffic after barges blown by the wind crashed into and damaged it. Meanwhile, workers blocked off lanes of one of the main freeway arteries connecting the city to the Central Valley – Interstate 580 in the Altamont Pass – after the ground beneath it started sliding.

“We’ve gone from extremes, this weather whiplash – the most dry and arid years that we’ve experienced in our lifetimes to some of the wettest years we’ve experienced in our lifetimes,” California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Monday, as the latest system approached.

The storms have triggered so much destruction across so much terrain that Newsom has declared a state of emergency in 43 of California’s 58 counties. In each, the damage and the repairs needed are unique. Brian Ferguson, a spokesman for the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, said costs from the latest round of storms will likely go up for weeks as officials assess damage. That comes on top of the more than $1 billion in damage to homes and public infrastructure from a series of deadly storms in January.

In the Sierra Nevada foothills, roads have been closed by landslides that can’t be quickly removed. The California Department of Transportation on Monday posted footage of State Route 70 in Plumas County buried under a collapsed hillside and warned there’s no estimate for when it can reopen.

For some of the state’s industries, the extreme weather has been an inconvenience, but little more. FilmLA, which administers permits to shoot movies and TV shows in the Los Angeles region, said it experienced many cancellations and requests to reschedule projects in the first wave of storms earlier this year. Now applications are being submitted with rain dates included as many producers try to plan their shoots around weather reports.

Operations at California’s busy ports have occasionally been slowed by the storms. Alan McCorkle, CEO of Yusen Terminals in the Port of Los Angeles, said the wind had twice stopped containers from being unloaded. “We also had a situation a few weeks ago where the wind knocked over several empty containers in the yard, which happened to several terminals at the same time, requiring all terminals to shut down for the rest of the shift,” McCorkle said. But such events are rare, even this year, he said.

The state’s sprawling agriculture industry, however, has taken a direct hit. The back-to-back storms struck farmland along the Central Coast particularly hard, putting strawberries and leafy greens in soggy peril and threatening to pinch national produce supply.

At the 99-year-old Ocean Mist Farms, the largest North American grower and supplier of artichokes, the deluge and unseasonably cool temperatures mean its growing crops in the region are delayed by several weeks, according to Mark Munger, senior director of marketing at the family-owned farming operation.

“Shoppers should probably expect very limited supplies in April, and that is directly due to the cold, wet weather we’ve been having,” Munger said. Ocean Mist, headquartered in Monterey County’s Castroville, was not able to plant vegetable crops like lettuce and broccoli on time due to all the rain and standing water. Other vegetables, like romaine lettuce, also are likely to be hard to find next month. The shortfall is poised to lift retail prices at a time when consumers continue to grapple with high food inflation.

In the Central Valley county of Tulare floods have already damaged citrus and almond orchards, along with dairy farms. As the spring runoff starts in the nearby Sierra Nevada, even more water will flow onto farmland downstream. “The creameries are having to temporarily shut down from the floods, that means a loss of jobs temporarily and dumping of milk,” said Tricia Stever Blattler, executive director of the Tulare County Farm Bureau. “There are potentially tens of thousands of acres of cropland underwater.”

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Bloomberg’s Laura Curtis, Christopher Palmeri and Joe Deaux.

The Maryland House voted this month to enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution. The measure is sponsored by House Speaker Adrienne Jones, a Democrat. If it passes the general assembly, Marylanders will have the chance to vote on the change in November 2024.

“It is something that I support, it’s something that I’m going to make sure that I’m using my voice on and using my bully pulpit on, and I do believe that if it goes out to voters, the voters are going to align with both myself and the speaker of the House on this,” he said.

It’s a strategy that has worked in other states. In the midterms, voters overwhelmingly favored abortion rights when given a choice – even in Republican strongholds like Kentucky.

The ability to access safe abortions is what keeps many American women from falling into poverty, decades of research shows. The University of California at San Francisco’s landmark Turnaway study, which tracked nearly 1,000 women who sought abortions from 2008 to 2010, found that those denied abortions experienced markedly higher levels of financial distress – including debt delinquency, personal bankruptcy and eviction – compared with those who were able to terminate their pregnancies.

Moore recently joined his counterparts in a coalition of 20 states focused on shoring up reproductive health-care access. The group includes Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and California Governor Gavin Newsom. Earlier this month, Moore, Newsom and Whitmer were among a group of lawmakers calling on pharmacy operators to clarify their policies on stocking, prescribing and distributing mifepristone, a pill that’s commonly taken to induce abortions.

The right to abortion is already protected in Maryland law. A constitutional amendment would go further in protecting reproductive health care if any future restrictions were put into place by the state legislature, which leans heavily Democratic. State officials have proposed other legislation to prepare for a potential surge in patients as other states enact restrictions.

“We’ll continue to make sure we’re protecting reproductive rights,” Moore said. “As long as I’m governor, that is going to be a reality in the state of Maryland.”

Sandbags were still piled outside waterlogged storefronts, some with broken windows. Neighbors in the small community south of Watsonville, whose residents are mostly Latino, low-income and farmworkers, helped each other sweep their floors.

Adrian Perez, 18, donned knee-high boots as he helped his parents clean their tiny one-bedroom apartment on the corner of Salinas Road and Jonathan Street.

It was red-tagged, meaning it was so damaged it was unsafe to occupy. Perez and his family filled large black trash bags with toys, blankets and shoes that were ruined in the floods. The interior smelled like spoiled food. The floors were muddy throughout, including in the kitchen and shower. Dishes were still on the drying rack.

“This is not livable,” Perez said.

All they could protect before evacuating at 1 a.m. March 11 were personal documents, family photos hanging on the walls and clothing that they placed atop a bunk bed in the living room, Perez said. A pet fish left behind in a tank was still alive.

He and his family have been living in a motel, paying around $100 a day, said his mother, Yolanda Perez.

Many of those who returned Thursday expressed anger, and questioned why federal and county officials were not walking the streets, helping people clean their homes. They said state and federal officials have only visited wealthier areas, like Santa Cruz and Capitola, hit hard by the storms pummeling the state since December.

“The only communities that help us are the people from nonprofits,” said Adrian Perez. “Those are the only ones who come and actually help.”

The county set up resource hubs at Pajaro Park and Pajaro Middle School to provide residents with first-aid kits, bottled water, face masks and personal hygiene kits. Evacuees at shelters were bused into Pajaro, officials said. More than 100 portable toilets and dozens of handwashing stations were placed throughout the city.

Perez said supplies ran out quickly before he could grab any.

Monterey County Board Supervisor Luis Alejo said on Twitter that he walked the streets Thursday, visiting homes and small businesses. “Mud is everywhere and you can smell the (foul) odor of the water and mud in each home,” he tweeted, urging state officials and FEMA to provide additional help for residents.

Raymon Cancino, chief executive officer of Community Bridges, a nonprofit providing aid to evacuees, said his team was providing communication support at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds.

A county spokesperson did not immediately respond Thursday to requests for comments about residents’ criticisms of inadequate assistance.

More than 900 houses and businesses were damaged in Pajaro, and nearly 500 people have been living in shelters. Dozens stayed behind despite the evacuation, living in increasingly desperate conditions , with water undrinkable due to contamination and sewers not functioning.

At a town-hall meeting Tuesday at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds, residents were told they would be allowed to return this week to gather their belongings, assess the damage and start cleanup.

But officials discouraged people from staying in their homes, saying that in addition to lack of clean water and functioning toilets, they were likely to encounter unsafe living conditions, including spoiled food, bacteria and possible power outages.

Instead, officials have informed people of the hazards and how to safely assess and clean their homes.

Across the street from the Perezes’ apartment, Juan Garcia and a friend shoveled several inches of mud out of his corner store G’s Market. The store was yellow-tagged, indicating it could be accessed and cleaned. Garcia threw out toys, gloves and food. His home was not flooded, he said.

“This (store) was years’ worth of hard work,” he said, adding that he opened it 11 years ago. “It was not much but it was all I had and now I have nothing, not even help from the county to help clean.”

He said the Red Cross provided him with a shovel.

Residents have expressed frustration with what they described as a lack of economic help, and pushed county officials to do more to provide additional resources, especially to the hundreds of people not living in the four provided shelters.

Monterey County officials said they have done all they can do to request state and federal assistance. The county has met Federal Emergency Management Agency aid requirements, they said, and is awaiting a major disaster declaration from President Biden. A March 10 state of emergency declaration increased federal support for state and local officials, but a major disaster declaration would provide assistance to individuals.

County supervisors also wrote to Gov. Gavin Newsom last week to request disaster relief for farmworkers and undocumented residents who are not eligible to receive federal aid or fear asking for help because of their immigration status.

Federal, state and local officials knew for decades that the Pajaro River levee was poorly designed and needed repairs, but the federal government did not prioritize the project because of the relatively low value of surrounding farmland and homes in a disadvantaged, predominantly Latino area, local officials told The Chronicle.

Next to Garcia’s corner store was a hair salon with a broken window. Behind it, Lorena Roman nervously waited until her landlord arrived to enter her apartment. The building was red-tagged and she did not feel safe enough to go in alone.

She said she has spent more than $1,000 staying at Motel 6 because she did not want to take her nephew, her daughter, who has autism, and her mother, who has health problems, to a shelter. Not enough help was being provided to families like hers, she said, who chose not to stay at shelters for personal reasons.

This is not the first time Roman’s home has flooded, she said. Her apartment was damaged after a levee breach in 1995 . She said the recent flooding could have been prevented if federal officials had prioritized funding to fix the Pajaro River.

“We have to start all over again. It’s not fair,” she said, choking back tears. “How come nobody does anything about it until we have all this damage? How come FEMA is not here? Why are we being neglected?”

Reach Jessica Flores: [email protected]; Twitter: @jesssmflores