Cabana Home
By an edhat reader
Sheriff’s Officers arrived [Monday] on the Amtrak platform in Carpenteria to help maintain order with the testy crowd. Our employee who was waiting in the crowd reported that after waiting for this morning’s first scheduled train, that there were 150 people on the platform trying to crowd on to the already standing room only train when it pulled up. Now he is waiting on the second train, also one hour late, and there are now approx., 500 people on the platform. He says when the train pulled up to the platform that it is already standing room only before anyone was allowed to get on..
We are going on our second week of our employees missing work because they cannot get on a train in Carpenteria due to the closure of Hwy 101.
So many people are on the train that they do not even check the tickets between Ventura and Santa Barbara.
He has missed numerous trains each day in spite of having a ticket and waiting for hours for the trains which are between 45-60 minutes late each and every day.
He has spoken to Amtrak who seems nonplussed and unmotivated to add additional cars or trains to their schedule.
Doctors, Nurses and medical professionals are allowed to board first, rightfully so, but it seems doubtful that there are 150-500 such professionals who live in Carpenteria alone.
We need your help in getting people to call on Amtrak, implore them to add to their service to our community in a time of need. The number is: 1 (800) 872-7245
As a business owner and employer in Santa Barbara, we remain in a challenging emergency environment, and a challenging business environment due to the fires, smoke, ash, flood and debris flow, and the damage and loss from these disasters which we will live with for many years. I know that our employees are not the only ones suffering from loss of income and they want and need to be able to get to work.
Please help us by calling on Amtrak to make this right, as I’m sure there are other employees and employers in our community who have the same issue.
More importantly, our hearts and prayers go out to those who have lost loved ones, those that have lost their homes and are displaced by this horrible tragedy. Thank you to our first responders and emergency and medical professionals who have worked so tirelessly for so many. God save us all.
I just checked there are still a bunch of rooms available here in town some starting at 90$ a night. So if you need employees here why not get them here and put them up for a while and eat the cost and try and file for that in damages later or you use it as a write off. Of you can just complain about an archaic train system that is basically run by the federal government and ask your employees to pile into tin boxes for 2 hours each way… Adding 3 hours to their typical work day and asking them to pay anywhere from 20 to 60 dollars to come and make what I would assume to be less than 200 a day. Seems like this is more about money than it is about keeping things going and keeping people employed. Even if we had 12 trains running all with 400 per train where are you gonna park the 4800 vehicles? This is a commuting nightmare no doubt but expecting valuable resources like public transportation be constantly available during a disaster not realistic. All it takes is one boulder or god forbid someone dies on the tracks and the entire system is shut down again.
I think they are doing their best it’s not like there is more than one track going through town, plus Union Pacific owns the tracks. I think employers who want to keep good employees ought to come up with some cash to put them up in motels…Several could share a room..
Talking to the young women at Shalhoobs meat market this Saturday. She walked to work from Summerland, along the railroad tracks . Said it only took 1:45. Not complaining and not whining. That’s a local girl for you.
I’d say there could be easy 150-500 medical professionals living in Carp. In addition to two hospitals there are numerous clinics, private offices, dentists, etc.
And honestly, if I had written this post, I would have started out talking about the loss of loved ones and the devastation of a community – otherwise it just sounds like a Santa Barbara business owner is upset about adequate staffing. This isn’t just an inconvenience for everyone – it is an absolute tragedy that will be heartfelt among people here for years.
Those local girls must have changed because they were different in my day.
The overall “authorities” responses to these events have just been lacking (to stay kind).
The least they could and SHOULD have done about this commuting problem is to organise MORE “shuttle trains” between the south and S.B.
On another matter : they have done NOTHING to alleviate the displacement problems.
Hundreds of families who live here, work here and have kids in school here have had to move to Buellton, Santa Maria or L.A. to find “suitable” (and AFFORDABLE) living quarters.
Meanwhile there is all this “short term housing rental” capacity in S.B. which has been forbidden by town hall last Summer.
No one there has has any sense that maybe, just maybe they could and SHOULD LIFT those restrictions until the ordeal ends , so that all those families can continue having an even vaguely “normal” life where they live ..
Entirely agree with you !
The bureaucrats are just set in their own (lazy) ways and nothing will budge them.
I am also AMAZED at how little (translate : nothing) we have heard from the glorious Ca “governor” !!
He seems to really care a lot !! doesn’t he ?
If you run a business and you do not pay your employees a wage that can allow them to live where they work you run the risk of them having travel issues. You took a risk by not paying a local living wage and you get to pay the consequences. Amtrak is a Federally monopoly and if you are hinging your businesses success on their ability to provide transportation. You are probably gonna have some trouble.
And if he tried to pay “local living wages” he could probably also just close his business.
Businesses have to be (marginally) “profitable” to SURVIVE. That is so even in “leftist paradises”.
Oh, please let me call amtrak up and let them know that their government subsidized business needs to kick it into gear so “his” government subsidized travel is more reliable. Give me a break. Thats about as left as it gets. When you start a business you take risk and you adapt and adjust to stay profitable. This is a consequence of that risk and now he wants the government to bail him out. Sounds like you were right about one thing we live in a “leftist paradise” where even the people who think they are “right” are bent west.
Probably alittle more than the golfer in the white house.
Are people the business owners upset that their retail workers on State Street can’t afford to live in town and aren’t in their shops selling trinkets to tourists?
People should take back the tracks! Start walking in protest en masse from Carp to SB. That really sucks, but I’ll bet it would get Union Pacific’s attention.
Sad to say that such a walk would be breaking numerous laws designed for hers and others safety once the Mandatory Evacuation zone was put into effect. I hope she doesn’t make it a practice and get arrested or worse.
As I understand, the ‘golfer currently in the White House’, is only taking $1.00 a year in salary. The rest goes to charities. At least, that is the last I heard.
Your must be Sir Spamalot.
Your must be Sir Spamalot.
Your must be Sir Spamalot.
Oh My excuse me I’m so sorry I have offended thee blessed right by mentioning the golfer in the white house who has donated 568,000.00 Dollars of his charity to charities may I lick thy blessed golf shoes and take a thousand lashes for my disruptions of thy blessed ways….According to Fortune Magazine his golfing trips have cost the Taxpayers over 20 million dollars…How do you like those Apples?
I’m surprised that your writers can’t spell CARPINTERIA correctly. C’mon!
Your employer needs to pay better wages.
I appreciate this post and it highlights that not enough planning has been done for emergency transportation measures. The freeway is subject to disruption by floods and slides and earthquakes and oil spills. What planning has been done by our local agencies to address this? They seem to be blindsided by this situation.
Take all of the billions they are throwing at the high speed train to nowhere and create double tracks and grade separated crossings all throughout California. Then run the trains on time. Simple.
That won’t help. There is quite literally no way that any employer here could afford to pay higher wages so that everyone who works here, can live here. That’s the case in every expensive, HCOL area.
Added to that, some people don’t want to live here. I mean, a condo in SB or a house in Ventura? For some, an easy choice. One spouse works in SB the other works in Camarillo? Again, a decision to be made.
That won’t help. There is quite literally no way that any employer here could afford to pay higher wages so that everyone who works here, can live here. That’s the case in every expensive, HCOL area.
Added to that, some people don’t want to live here. I mean, a condo in SB or a house in Ventura? For some, an easy choice. One spouse works in SB the other works in Camarillo? Again, a decision to be made.
That won’t help. There is quite literally no way that any employer here could afford to pay higher wages so that everyone who works here, can live here. That’s the case in every expensive, HCOL area.
Added to that, some people don’t want to live here. I mean, a condo in SB or a house in Ventura? For some, an easy choice. One spouse works in SB the other works in Camarillo? Again, a decision to be made.