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Storm blamed for death in Santa Cruz County
A Boulder Creek man was killed when gusty winds toppled a large tree onto his property during Sundays storm. A car in the driveway was also damaged. Meanwhile, a psychologist in Ben Lomond who had just cleared a tree from her driveway nearly escaped injury when another tree crashed onto her hood.
Boulder Creek, CA - Ben Lomond psychologist Dr. Juko Holiday had just completed clearing a tree from her driveway when fate nearly ended her life.
Juko, recording a dashcam video, screams, and then puts her car in reverse and backs up, as a tree crashes onto her hood, narrowly missing the passenger compartment.
"I think it’s a time when all of the work on nervous system regulation comes in handy. And so I just saw what happened. And in the video you hear me say wow, that was exciting. So I was relatively calm," she said, still marveling at the series of events.
Holiday escaped injury. But a Boulder Creek man wasn’t as fortunate. Sunday, 45-year-old Robert Brainard III was killed when gusty winds toppled a large tree onto his property. A car in the driveway was also damaged. Officials with the Santa Cruz County Medical Examiner said his death was accidental, and that more details will be provided at a later time.
Santa Cruz County officials said there are at least 30 road closures and power outages, spread across this county of 267,000 residents. All the damage is attributed to heavy rain, high winds and falling trees and tree limbs that were blown down and around from winds gusting to 70 miles per hour.
"It’s pretty much a mess everywhere in the county. These high winds brought down branches and trees pretty much in every neighborhood of Santa Cruz County. We have power outages throughout the mountain still," Jason Hoppin, the Santa Cruz County spokesman said as he stood outside the county’s Emergency Operations Center. "We have crews out trying to get our road network back in shape as soon as possible."
In addition to secondary roads, major arteries of traffic are impacted. CHP officers said rain earlier in the day Monday contributed to three accidents within a two-mile stretch of southbound State Highway 17, near Hubbard Road, in Santa Cruz Co. One of the vehicles involved ended up on its roof. There were only minor injuries associated with the accidents.
As for Holiday, she resumed, late Monday, clearing work on her property. She said this scare is the latest in a string of Mother Nature-spawned near-death experiences.
"If I had been four feet closer it would have come through my windshield," she said. "Today I’m immersed in gratitude and humility. I lost my home in the CZU Lightning (Complex) Fire, so it’s not my first brush with death. This is still my home and it’s irrational, but I wouldn’t live anywhere else."
Jesse Gary is a reporter based in the station's South Bay bureau. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter), @JesseKTVU and on Instagram, @jessegontv
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