As Santa Barbara County gets a break from the wet weather for a few days, several residents are dealing with the aftermath of the most recent storm, such as damage to properties caused by flooding, mud and debris, and wind.
Residents looking for resources or help dealing with water damage can contact the County Call Center at 833.688.5551, as well as the building and safety divisions or public works departments in their city, where staff can help set up building inspections or damage assessments. Residents can also contact the county Planning and Development Department directly at 805.568.2000.
According to operations manager Adrian Barraza, QwikResponse — a restoration and construction company that has been responding to water damage calls throughout the county— has seen 40 to 50 storm-related calls, all with different severity levels ranging from roof leaks to fully flooded units with up to a foot of water damage.
“It’s different in all units. Some units just had a little bit of water intrusion, while others had quite a bit,” Barraza said. “We continue to have more and more calls, so we have customers that are kind of in a holding pattern until we can get to them.”
County Planning and Development Director Lisa Plowman told the county Planning Commission on Wednesday that the department has been working with the call center to identify and inspect properties that have been damaged.
“So far, we have on our list 16 structures, and we’ve inspected nine of them,” Plowman said. “The nine that we inspected were in Orcutt, where we saw quite a bit of damage because of an overflow of a creek, and then that spilled into the detention basin at the corner of Bradley and [Union Valley Parkway]. That created quite a bit of flooding and mud flow.”
She added that, of those nine structures, two were red-tagged — meaning people should not enter — several were yellow-tagged — meaning to enter with caution — and the rest were cleared.
“We’ll be working with our residents and property owners to get them through the process to help them assess the safety of their structures, and then they can get a damage assessment by a licensed professional, and we’ll be assigning a planner to them to guide them through the rebuild process,” Plowman said.
“We need all the reports of the damage. … We need to know where the damage is — trees down, mud flow, whatever it is — whether it’s in the county or cities, that way we can collect all that information and get as much recovery money as possible [from the state and federal governments who have declared emergencies related to the storm].”
Kelly Hubbard, director of the Santa Barbara County Office of Emergency Management, said during the county press conference on Tuesday that the evacuation shelter at the SBCC Wake Center, at 300 N. Turnpike Road in Santa Barbara, will remain open and that residents in the North County who need shelter assistance also can contact the County Call Center.
In Santa Maria, public information manager Mark van de Kamp said that residents in the city whose properties sustained uninsured damage from the storm are encouraged to call the building division of the city’s community development department at 805.925.0951 x2241.
Residents in unincorporated areas or other cities can also call the County Call Center, where they will be directed to the proper department to assist them.
