GUERNEVILLE — Six months after a historic flood on the Russian River damaged much of the housing stock along the water, many residents are not sure if they will be able to stay.
Housing was already tough before Guerneville was hit with its worst flood in 25 years, and locals are worried the disaster will change the face and feel of the town.
“The people that live here year-round are struggling behind the scenes, you just don’t know it.” said Jeniffer Wertz, a community and worker advocate. After the flood, there are not as many workers around.
“In less than 24 hours, you lose your home, all your stuff and your job. It’s almost impossible to recover," she said. "Some of the people that were the backbone of this community have relocated and aren’t gonna come back.”
That includes Angelique Rivera, who lived along the river in Monte Rio for 10 years. Her cottage was elevated but that was not enough to prevent water damage from climbing up four feet of the walls. Now she is living in a two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment in Santa Rosa.
“This is our new place, it was a commercial property at one time. It used to be a salon,” said Rivera. She is renting from a woman who had been converting commercial space into homes for Santa Rosa fire victims.
“We came from 600 square feet to almost 1,100 square feet. So we have a little laundry room,” and a yard, and a taqueria across the street. If she wants to go shopping, she only needs to travel three minutes instead of the half hour that was needed to get from rural Monte Rio to a major commercial area. Rivera is one of the lucky ones.
“We still have a lot of people that are couch-surfing, can’t find a place and still don’t have a job,” said Wertz.
But it does not feel like home to Rivera. She is having trouble adjusting.
“I do miss that immediate feel of community and friends,” she says. “That they’re always there. If I’m in trouble, someone is there in five minutes. And out here, we’re having to rebuild that. We know our neighbors here. But it’s different.”
Perhaps part of the reason she is having trouble settling in is the trauma of having to uproot her life so suddenly; evacuating is constantly on her mind. “It’s like where’s my CPAP, where’s our passports, where’s the dog, where’s the phone and the chargers. Done. Let’s go.”
Cabaret performer Tom Orr had to say goodbye to Guerneville after five years. “It did take an act of God to get me out,” he said. He moved to Seattle where he has friends and family who are helping him get back on his feet.
“I didn’t have a choice. The town was underwater and my apartment had eight feet in it, and a lot of my stuff was destroyed,” although Orr has found a way to be positive about it. “It did save me several thousands of dollars in not having to move a bunch of cruddy furniture two states away.”
For Wertz, the flood suddenly left her alone in her seven-unit mixed-use building. “I’m the only one that didn’t flood, because I live upstairs. I was surrounded by floodwater, but all of my neighbors were displaced and flooded immediately and nobody’s moved back in," she said.
“I thought I was one of the lucky ones. I almost feel guilty about it because all of my neighbors were displaced and I survived,” although she may soon find herself displaced as well, a delayed victim of the flooding. Her landlord says he cannot afford to repair the building and has chosen to sell it. “As it turns out, the repercussions are more long term.”
Reported by Holly Quan. Written by Jessica Yi.