Residents displaced by storms scramble for shelter, face an uncertain future 

Laurie Adams-Biorn, of Oceano, barely escaped the flooding, but it came at a cost.

As historic rains pummeled San Luis Obispo County on the morning of Jan. 9, Adams-Biorn made the decision to evacuate herself and her two kids from their residence in the Pacific Dunes Ranch RV Resort.

Later that day, the Arroyo Grande Creek levee broke and flooded the entire area surrounding the park—land-locking it and its remaining residents.

"I got a call at 5:30 p.m. that the park flooded," Adams-Biorn recounted to New Times. "There was no way in or out. I'd left everything behind, including my cats."

A local hotel worker, Adams-Biorn said she and her kids stayed the night of Jan. 9 at her workplace. The next morning, she found out that the entire RV park was evacuating, and residents wouldn't be able to return.

In immediate need of shelter and resources, Adams-Biorn was advised to contact the Red Cross, which had opened an evacuation center in SLO. But when she called to double check on Jan. 10, she was told that the shelter closed that afternoon, after one night of operation.

"The day they were evacuating people [from the Arroyo Grande levee area] was the day they shut it down," Adams-Biorn said. "[The website] literally says, 'No shelters open for evacuees.' There's no help."

Across the county, locals like Adams-Biorn displaced from their homes by the storms have had to scramble to find alternative housing accommodations.

Dozens in SLO, Los Osos, Morro Bay, Arroyo Grande, Oceano, and elsewhere had residences so severely damaged by floods or mudslides that building officials had to red- or yellow-tag them—which means they're not safe to live in.

click to enlarge

• PHOTO BY CAMILLIA LANHAM
• UNSAFE A pile of shoveled mud sits in front of a Los Osos home red-tagged by building officials after the Jan. 9 storm. Dozens of houses countywide are unsafe to inhabit after flooding and mudslides.

According to affected residents and community advocates, options for alternative housing are limited, often expensive, and temporary.

"Everything we have going right now are short-term solutions," said Quinn Brady, of Los Osos, who's been assisting her neighbors on Vista Court displaced by a devastating mudslide. "The majority I'd say are staying with a friend or a neighbor. There's a mix of some hotel and some Airbnb.

"The consequence of that is the county feels like there's not a need [for shelter]," she said. "But then what? These people are going to be displaced for months. There has been no solution at all to begin addressing that."

Adams-Biorn said she was dismayed by the lack of support from disaster groups and public agencies in the storm's immediate aftermath. She indicated that she's not the only employee at her hotel who got displaced and sheltered at work.

"It's the community that's helping," Adams-Biorn said. "People have been stepping up with food. Food started coming, but clothes—I have the same clothes on. I've been washing them every night just so I can come to work."

The Red Cross of Central California did not have an evacuation shelter open in SLO County as of New Times' press time. It opened one on the night of Jan. 9 and again on the night of Jan. 14, at different locations in SLO.

Sivani Babu, a public affairs volunteer for the Red Cross, told New Times that the nonprofit coordinates with the SLO County Office of Emergency Services to determine if and when an evacuation center is needed.

"We opened the shelters when the county asked us to," Babu said.

While Red Cross shelters continued to operate and see use in Monterey, San Benito, and Santa Barbara counties, SLO County's shelter did not see any displaced residents on the two nights it was open, according to the nonprofit.

Still, local officials admit that the overall response left more to be desired. Developing better preparedness, coordination, and communication is a key takeaway from the recent disaster. The many moving parts made it challenging for locals to understand what to do, or where to go for help.

"It has been confusing," said SLO County 4th District Supervisor Jimmy Paulding. "Moving forward, I think there's a lot to learn about regional response. It is about disaster preparedness. I think we need to take a little bit of a forensic look at how we can improve the timing of response and regional coordination."

On the emergency shelter front, local homeless services providers recently met with county emergency officials about how they can improve lines of communication for future crises.

Janna Nichols, executive director of the 5Cities Homeless Coalition, explained that the homeless nonprofits weren't always informed about where they were needed most during the disaster—for instance, that the Arroyo Grande levee was "a concern and we needed to step up our outreach in Oceano."

"For us, the challenge throughout the storms was, I just needed one entity to tell me what they needed us to do, where we needed to pivot, so we're not hearing from six different sources what we should or shouldn't be doing," Nichols said. "That ended up being a healthy conversation."

As residents displaced by the storm look to their next steps, officials say that the Biden administration's Jan. 17 declaration of a major disaster in the county will enable those most impacted to apply for individual financial assistance.

That federal aid could eventually help reimburse those who fled to hotels or to Airbnbs during the storm. But for Adams-Biorn, the storm's traumatic impact on her family's lives can't be reimbursed, and the county's response only added insult to injury.

"It's life-changing. It truly is," Adams-Biorn said. "And there's more than just me going through it." Δ

Assistant Editor Peter Johnson can be reached at [email protected].