Residents left in flooded California farm town of Pajaro feel ‘abandoned’ as levees fail
PAJARO, Calif. — Dora Alvarez stood on the balcony of her two-story apartment building Tuesday, holding a garden hose next to a rain gutter and steering the water toward recycling bins below for her family to use after boiling it.
“As long as they don’t shut the gas off, we’ll be OK,” she said.
Alvarez, 54, and her family were among the residents who chose not to evacuate Pajaro, the small migrant town that flooded when a levee on the Pajaro River failed late Friday, forcing hundreds of people to flee their homes.
“I know some people criticize us for not leaving, but the flooding danger isn’t here, it’s somewhere else,” Alvarez said, pointing south toward Salinas Road, which was submerged in water.
Standing nearby, her neighbor Karla Loreto, 35, nodded in agreement.
“We’re also not going to be wandering around in search of danger,” Loreto said.
The town has in
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