Within a five-week period this fall, the district saw its Director of Finance Kendra Reed and District Manager/General Manager Rick Rogers move on from their roles due, in part, to interactions with Bob Fultz, a board member since 2018.
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There were a lot of people who didn t have water for a long time, Mahood said.
In fact, much of the drinking water system operated by the San Lorenzo Valley Water District that serves Mahood s neighborhood, along with some 7,100 other households, was damaged or destroyed.
Over the past five years or so, hundreds of California drinking water systems have suffered similar fates while struggling with the impacts of the state s increasingly intense climate-driven wildfires.
In 2020 alone, 250 water systems were either damaged by fire or were subject to fire-related public safety power shutoffs, according to Stefan Cajina, who leads the Drinking Water Division for the State Water Resources Control Board s North Coast Section.
Lightning Complex fires caused significant damage to Bay Area drinking water infrastructure
By Kiley Russell
A look back at the CZU Lighting Complex Fires
In total, 86,509 acres burned - 135 square miles. 1,490 structures, many of those homes, were destroyed. An additional 140 structures were damaged.
BEN LOMOND, Calif. - As the CZU Lightning Complex fire bore down on Gail Mahood s tree-shrouded Felton neighborhood last August, she gathered what possessions she could and fled. As I drove away and saw how fast the fire was moving, I didn t have much hope for my home, Mahood recalled.
Thankfully, fire crews saved the little community of 20 or so houses, stopping the blaze within a half-mile of Mahood s home in the Santa Cruz Mountains, but the pipes that delivered drinking water from a spring just up the hill were completely destroyed.