Scotts Valley residents in shock as city cleans up tornado damage
In Scotts Valley, people are still trying to wrap their heads around a tornado that touched down in the busiest part of town on Saturday.
It's the first time a tornado hit Scotts Valley, located high in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Many witnesses called it a mind-blowing experience.
"I've lived in California my whole life. I've never seen anything like this," said Ernesto Ochoa, who was working in a pizza restaurant when the tornado struck at 1:30 p.m.
"It was a big roar, and it truly sounded like a train," said Scotts Valley resident Joan Butler.
"I've never seen cars toss like that. That was really, really unusual," said John Ledingham, who saw the twister as he was driving home. "A funnel cloud went right over the car, and it was, I don't know, three stories high above my car maybe, and then it hit."
City officials said that the funnel cloud turned into a tornado when it touched down and spun on Mount Hermon Road for a third of a mile.
"Cars flipped over, people hurt, lamp posts down, everything that you can imagine," said Ledingham.
First responders and witnesses said the powerful winds overturned seven vehicles and injured five people, most of them were drivers.
"When it happened, I was kind of in shock. I wasn't really thinking about it. But seeing those people flip over in the cars, and just crawling out of their cars, kind of puts it into perspective," recalled Ochoa.
Vice Mayor Derek Timm said as of Sunday afternoon, one person remained in the hospital.
"We had cars that were tossed throughout this parking lot and the one across the street," said Timm. "Then we had a Cal Fire vehicle that was flipped, a large commuter van was flipped."
The vice mayor said the strong winds destroyed 15 traffic lights on and near Mount Hermon Road.
It also uprooted a very large tree which landed on a Scotts Valley Middle School building. The principal said it damaged one classroom, which will be temporarily unavailable. School will resume on Monday.
The break in weather on Sunday gave people an opportunity to clean up from the mess left behind by the historic storm.
Many of the downed trees were cleared out by Sunday morning. Power and communication lines were restored.
"This hit right in the center of town. Mount Hermon Road, where it hit, is the second busiest street in the entire Santa Cruz County area. So it's the most travelled (in our town). It hit right at 1:30 in the afternoon. Things were hopping in all of our (shopping) centers here. And so when the tornado came through, we got amazingly lucky. It really was a miracle that no one was killed," said Timm.
Everyone is thankful there were no fatalities.
"In addition to all the first responders, you saw people just stopping in their cars and clearing the streets and helping each other. It was great," said Ledingham.
