As Santa Cruz County has faced the effects of a series of pineapple express-heightened winter storms and prepared for the worst, this week marks the 41st anniversary of one of the area’s most…
BEN LOMOND — As Santa Cruz County has faced the effects of a series of pineapple express-heightened winter storms and prepared for the worst, this week marks the 41st anniversary of one of the area’s most significant natural disasters for loss of life.
Ten of the 22 people killed during a three-day storm that struck the region Jan. 3-5, 1982, fell victim to a fast-moving mudslide when Love Creek oversaturated a quarter-mile swath of hillside. Others, in Aptos, Soquel, throughout the San Lorenzo Valley and Santa Cruz died in their homes due to mud flows and crashing trees. In Scotts Valley, one woman was swept into Lompico Creek and a man into Carbonero Creek, while another man died there in a tractor accident while clearing a tree.
A Lompico man watches as searchers look for the remains of the man’s family members in the Love Creek slide debris in 1982. By comparison, seven people died in Santa Cruz County due to the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 and one man died during the 2020 CZU August Lightning Complex fires. In the past four days, Santa Cruz County has experienced a cumulative rainfall between 1 inch in South County to 5 inches near Scott Creek in San Lorenzo Valley, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s counts.
Flooding, debris flows and mudslides also took their toll during the 1982 storm. Homes slid from their foundations, into roads and into creeks. At the time, Santa Cruz County officials estimated cumulative storm damages of more than $100 million, including $56 million to homes and private property alone.
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