Pajaro residents call on county officials to lift evacuation orders, but timeline to return remains uncertain.

Pajaro residents were ordered to evacuate one week ago today, although many were awoken hours later in the middle of the night, after a levee breach led to catastrophic flooding and first responders made the rounds door to door to get people out of their homes. 

Now that floodwaters are receding, residents are wondering what's next and when they can go home.

The answer from county officials is, in short: We don't know quite yet. 

As Undersheriff Keith Boyd told reporters in a briefing on Thursday, March 16, repopulation could begin as early as next week, and likely would be inside a month—but it's too soon to say. 

Without a clear answer, about two dozen residents gathered in protest on Friday, March 17, on the Main Street Bridge that connects Pajaro to Watsonville over the Pajaro River.

There are a few things that need to happen before officials will give the all-clear and allow residents and business owners to begin to return home. One task: County Public Works is clearing debris from roads to make them passable for inspectors to gain access (and residents after them). 

"Our crews have been working feverishly," Monterey County Public Works Director Randell Ishii told reporters on Friday, March 17, of the effort to clear debris—like rocks, mud and trees conveyed by floodwaters—from streets. "[Crews are] starting with the main roads like Salinas and San Juan, and now going to the side streets."

Next up is a building assessment by Cal Fire damage inspection specialists to determine whether a structure is safe to enter. Their analysis then authorizes officials from other entities—such as the county Bureau of Environmental Health, the building inspectors from county department of Housing and Community Development, the North Monterey County Fire Protection District and PG&E—to safely enter to conduct inspections of their own. 

Each entity will issue a determination about whether a specific home is safe. The Bureau of Environmental Health will utilize a three-tiered, color-coded system of red (not safe to enter), yellow (restricted access may begin for cleanup purposes) and green (safely habitable). 

Inspectors will be looking for structural integrity that may have been undermined by flooding; the presence of chemicals (agricultural, industrial or commercial) that may have been conveyed with floodwaters; and the safety of the water supply, among other factors. 

Cal Fire's inspections could wrap up as early as later today, March 17. Then other agencies will begin, possibly as early as this weekend. (Cal Fire's determinations on building status can be viewed in an interactive map.) 

County officials were unable to immediately respond to questions on Friday about whether prior code violations that are discovered upon inspection will influence decisions about whether to reopen a structure for reentry. 

Residents can expect that once the Monterey County Sheriff's Office does begin lifting evacuation orders, it will be zone by zone, with the least impacted communities cleared to reenter first.

"There are issues we need to address before we can give an all-clear and rescind the evacuation order," Boyd said. "We have to take into consideration we have a community that was inundated, and there are potential contaminants are in the area. We can’t just allow the public back into their homes—we have to know we are not putting them back into harm’s way…if we let them back in and it was the wrong time, it could impact their lives as well." 

While people are waiting for the reentry process to get underway, the shelter nearest to Pajaro, located at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds in Watsonville, has expanded its capacity. 

As of March 17, there were 355 people lodged at the fairgrounds shelters, and smaller numbers at other locations set up by the county including 19 at Compass Church in Salinas; 10 at the Castroville Recreation Center; and 39 at the Salvation Army.