Pajaro residents get certified in disaster response as the town’s infrastructure upgrades continue.

For many Pajaro residents who suffered through the 2023 flooding, it was nothing new—they had also experienced the same catastrophe in the 1990s.

But some of those will be better prepared should disaster strike the community again.

Twenty-four Pajaro residents recently completed a 22-hour Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training, held for the first time locally in Spanish. The program was launched by the Monterey County Department of Emergency Management and conducted by the Santa Cruz Auxiliary CERT.

Through the program, the residents learned basic disaster response skills, such as search and rescue, medical operations and fire safety.

Each graduate of the program was given a green CERT backpack, a two-way radio, a green CERT helmet, a helmet flashlight, a yellow vest with a CERT patch, gloves, a surgical N95 respirator, goggles, a trauma dressing hemorrhage bandage, duct tape, a radio, a glow stick, a CERT operational guide booklet, Narcan, and a gas and water shut-off wrench.

Community Bridges hosted the program, and each participant received a $500 stipend.

"What we’ve accomplished is something we’re seeing for the first time—services, support and attention that Pajaro is finally receiving,” said Mario Ernesto Zuniga Merlos, Pajaro CERT leader. “We’re being prepared for emergencies, learning how to be active community members, move forward and support one another as neighbors."

More than two years after the flood, recovery work continues—including upgrading the town’s infrastructure.

Two dozen solar-powered streetlights have recently been installed throughout Pajaro, while sidewalk work, including new ADA-compliant curb ramps, are expected to wrap up by the end of May, according to Monterey County Chief of Public Works Enrique Saavedra.

Other projects include traffic signal upgrades at San Juan Road/Porter Drive and Salinas Road/Pajaro Middle School, in addition to three radar speed signs installed on San Juan Road, Railroad Avenue and Lewis Road, expected to be complete by the end of June.

Plans are also underway to resurface Salinas Road from the Pajaro Bridge to Railroad Avenue, Saavedra said.

The total cost of these projects is $2 million, paid for from $20 million in state recovery funds that must be expended by the end of the year.