SANTA CRUZ >> For the fourth time in as many years, Santa Cruz County leaders have declared a local emergency in response to destructive winter storms that caused millions worth of damage to coastal infrastructure.

While the collapse at the end of the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf grabbed most headlines, much of the county’s unincorporated coastal territory took a beating Monday and Tuesday after choppy waters and towering waves inundated local roadways with debris and destroyed boats, docks and utilities inside the Santa Cruz Harbor.

The destruction prompted county officials to call a special meeting Friday in order for the Board of Supervisors to ratify the local emergency declared earlier this week by County Administrative Officer Carlos Palacios.

“In the last five to six years, it has been almost a permanent state of disaster repair,” said outgoing Supervisor Zach Friend, unexpectedly attending one final meeting as the 2nd District’s representative. “As soon as we start to build out of it, something else seems to happen. Resiliency is going to be key moving forward and obviously the patience and understanding of the broader community for the time that it takes to rebuild.”The proclamation is the start of a process that the county hopes will eventually open a valve to state — and possibly federal — financial aid as the recovery begins. The board also directed its staff to forward the declaration to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office with a request that he declare the county to be in a state of emergency and, therefore, eligible for state recovery resources. If approved, that proclamation could then be forwarded to the federal government, which could approval a federal disaster declaration that would open the county up to even more support.

Director of the county’s Office of Response, Recovery & Resilience Dave Reid explained that federal emergency declarations take into account damages statewide — not county by county — and he and his team do not anticipate the overall financial toll will meet the threshold to qualify for federal relief.

“However, we will be requesting (U.S. Small Business Administration) support for the economic impact to the businesses on the wharf and businesses inside the harbor,” added Reid.

As the designated local operational area lead, the county must make the request for disaster aid from state and federal authorities on behalf of local jurisdictions, including the Santa Cruz Harbor, which officials have estimated sustained more than $20 million in damages. The storm surge, which many have compared to the 2011 tsunami incident, capsized several boats in the harbor’s north end, shredded docks and scattered loads of debris throughout the waterway.

The harbor’s governing board, the Santa Cruz Port District Commission, approved an emergency conditions resolution Monday that allowed for as much as $150,000 in expenditures to address immediate needs.

The commission’s chair, Toby Goddard, attended the county board’s special meeting to express the commission’s support for the proclamation.

“The harbor got a terrible beating,” Goddard told the Sentinel. “The damage is mostly in the north harbor… but there is damage and debris in the south harbor too and it’s going to take time and money and resources and people all working together to put it back together.”

According to the county staff report, preliminary estimates for damage countywide top $25 million and that figure is expected to rise in the coming weeks. Unincorporated roads along East Cliff Drive, the Rio Del Mar Esplanade and Beach Drive were among the areas hit hard by the storm earlier this week, but several beaches up and down the coast are still working to clean up huge amounts of debris piled on the shore.

Although a federal disaster designation appears unlikely at this point, the county has had no shortage in recent years. The federal government has included Santa Cruz County in eight federal disaster declarations since 2017 in the aftermath of several brutalizing winter storms, a calamitous wildfire and the global COVID-19 pandemic.

But that assistance has been slow to arrive, forcing the county to borrow money to keep operations flowing while it awaited repayment.

“Finding the financing … will be a significant challenge moving forward for this community,” said Friend, “especially as the numbers continue to go (up).”