No news is good news around the holidays in San Benito
County.
While none of the area’s public safety departments reported a
major incident or vehicle accident between New Year’s Eve and
Sunday, the number of arrests for drunk driving during the partying
holiday and weekend was a relatively scant three, said Sheriff’s
Department Sgt. Beth Dudzik from the San Benito County Jail on
Sunday night.
No news is good news around the holidays in San Benito County.
While none of the area’s public safety departments reported a major incident or vehicle accident between New Year’s Eve and Sunday, the number of arrests for drunk driving during the partying holiday and weekend was a relatively scant three, said Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Beth Dudzik from the San Benito County Jail on Sunday night.
Since Dec. 24, there was also a relatively low number of 12 drunk driving arrests, according to jail records. Dudzik said she was expecting more violators over the holidays. Anyone pulled over in the county who has a blood-alcohol level of .08 or higher is arrested and booked into the jail.
Sheriff Curtis Hill said reported drunk driving arrests were down throughout the Bay Area this year, too. And locally, he attributed the drop to awareness and previous enforcement efforts.
“I hope it is (due to awareness),” Hill said Sunday night. “People understand it’s serious.”
“Hopefully,” he added, “people have other options they’re taking.”
DUI figures for the same holiday period of 2002 were unavailable by press time.
Meanwhile, as rain storms between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day inflicted flooding and damage in surrounding counties, the Hollister Public Works Department reported little or no weather destruction in the area.
Since Dec. 25, storms have dropped four inches of rain on Hollister, according to AccuWeather, a national weather database. While coastal Santa Cruz during that same time absorbed close to six inches, along with a flurry of flood-related problems.
Local troubles related to rain were limited to over-capacity of a few storm drains, especially one on Fourth Street, according to Richard Salaz, Hollister public works superintendent.
“We’re still going around picking up leaves as much as we can so they don’t plug the catch basin,” Salaz said.
Perhaps more surprisingly, as storms continually pelted the area during a holiday traveling period, there were no reports of major accidents on county roadways. Furthermore, for local fire crews since Dec. 31, as Hollister Fire Capt. Tim Schneider put it, “It’s been kind of quiet.”
Neither the downtown Hollister Fire Department nor the California Department of Forestry stationed on Fairview Road responded to any fires, accidents or other holiday-related calls since New Year’s Eve.
