{"id":8718002,"date":"2023-01-17T06:22:07","date_gmt":"2023-01-17T14:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eastbaytimes.com\/?p=8718002&preview=true&preview_id=8718002"},"modified":"2023-01-17T06:36:03","modified_gmt":"2023-01-17T14:36:03","slug":"slip-sliding-away-the-name-of-the-game-on-scenic-highway-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eastbaytimes.com\/2023\/01\/17\/slip-sliding-away-the-name-of-the-game-on-scenic-highway-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Slip sliding away: The name of the game on scenic Highway 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

BIG SUR \u2014 The engineers and laborers who constructed California State Route 1 from Carmel to San Luis Obispo County beginning in the 1920s knew the road was fraught with peril. But they did it anyway. Coastal communities in the area needed better access to health care and other resources.<\/p>\n

Engineers and prisoners alike risked life and limb as they built the two-lane highway into the majestic coastal cliffs of the Santa Lucia mountains. The 18-year project eventually connected San Luis Obispo to Carmel via the seaside, where the geology makes the road inherently susceptible to landslides. The 1937 grand opening even included a symbolic blasting of a boulder, which the governor cleared from the road with a bulldozer. It was the first of many to come.<\/p>\n

Now, incessant storms are causing landslide trouble on Highway 1. Again.<\/p>\n

Multiple problems<\/h4>\n

A 45-mile section of Highway 1 extending from Deetjen\u2019s Big Sur Inn in Monterey County to Ragged Point in San Obispo County is currently closed due to landslides, with no estimate on when it will reopen. And residents, businesses and Caltrans crews along the Big Sur coast are bracing for more geological activity as winter storms continue rolling in.<\/p>\n

Closures like this along the Big Sur coast are not uncommon. Residents and businesses aren\u2019t surprised when they are temporarily cut off from the world. Caltrans engineers know they must move mountains off the road. Repeatedly.<\/p>\n

But nobody gives up on California\u2019s crown jewel highway, which is recognized by the U.S. Department of Transportation as a National Scenic Byway. Laborers, who seem to be working continuously to repair damage and rebuild sections after landslides, are lauded as heroes, and locals host celebrations for reopenings.<\/p>\n

\u2018Challenges and rewards\u2019<\/h4>\n

\u201cA ribbon of highway on the edge of the continent presents challenges \u2014 and rewards,\u201d said Kevin Drabinski, the Caltrans District 5 public information officer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe make these closures for the safety of the traveling public. It\u2019s an international travel destination, and, just as important, it\u2019s home to communities and businesses. So we try and do the best we can to keep it open,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Landslides come with the geology of the area. \u201cIt\u2019s old ocean floor stuff that makes up a lot of the California coast that\u2019s been accreted or pushed up on the continent, so it\u2019s been faulted and folded and distorted and weakened,\u201d said Gary Griggs, a professor of Earth Sciences at UC Santa Cruz.<\/p>\n

Landslides on Highway 1 usually happen during storms, when water hits soil, making the soil heavy, lubricated and more fluid. Gravity sends chunks of mobilized mountainside plunging from steep, sweeping cliffsides into the crashing waves below \u2014 or onto the highway.<\/p>\n

Caltrans prepares for winter storms in the fall. Crews inspect and clean out culverts, which Drabinski describes as the \u201cunsung heroes of Highway 1.\u201d Some workers even rappel from the cliffs with picks and other tools in hand to dislodge loose rocks. Worker safety is always a priority.<\/p>\n

The goal is to make the cliffs as stable as possible going into the winter. \u201cWe put special focus on areas that are downslope of the Dolan fire burn scar,\u201d said Drabinski. Previously burned areas are especially prone to slides when the rains start.<\/p>\n

The precarious road has been closed due to landslides dozens of times since it first opened in 1937. The road closed 55 times between 1937 and 2001, according to a 2001 report.<\/p>\n

The worst event in that period was a 963-foot-high landslide in 1983 near Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. The New York Times reported that it took 13 months, 30 bulldozers, 7,700 pounds of explosives, and $7.8 million to clear it, and one bulldozer operator lost his life in the process. When it reopened, residents threw a party with bands, balloons and a 52-foot-long carrot cake, according to the New York Times.<\/p>\n

\"Vehicles
Vehicles get trapped in a mudslide on Highway 1 just south of Esalen on Feb. 13, 1987. The major winter storm caused this section of roadway to be closed for weeks. (Monterey Herald Archives) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More recent winters have produced some of the worst \u2014 and most costly \u2014 landslides in the road\u2019s history. Each time, Caltrans has been prepared and quick to respond.<\/p>\n

In February 2017 a landslide displaced a damaged column of the Pfeiffer Canyon Bridge. Crews demolished and completely replaced the bridge with a new $21.7 million bridge designed to reduce its susceptibility to landslides. The new bridge was completed in October 2017 after an effort to design and construct a new bridge quickly that Jim Shivers, a Caltrans spokesperson, described in a 2017 article as \u201dremarkable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Caltrans
Caltrans workers remove falsework from the new bridge over Pfeiffer Canyonin Big Sur in early September 2017.(Courtesy of Caltrans) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But the road remained closed to the south \u2014 in May that same year, a landslide had buried the highway near Mud Creek, just north of the Big Sur Lookout. The massive event, described in the national news by Executive Director of the Big Sur Chamber of Commerce Stan Russell, as \u201cthe mother of all landslides,\u201d buried a quarter-mile section of the highway 40 feet deep. The road reopened 14 months \u2014 and $54 million \u2014 later.<\/p>\n

In January 2021, the road itself collapsed into the sea leaving a steep and terrifying void where the mountainside used to be. But Caltrans took advantage of subsequent dry weather and restored the road faster than anticipated. It reopened in April 2021, nearly two months ahead of schedule and only three months after the initial event.<\/p>\n

The repeated cycle of damage and repair seems tedious, but there aren\u2019t many other options for a coastal highway built into the mountainside.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s always going to be this Band-Aid approach,\u201d said Griggs. \u201cWe fix it up and wait for the next one, but it\u2019s a place where that\u2019s the only choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Jesse
Jesse Foster uses a 45-degree form to monitor the work being done by a heavy machine operator as work continues at the Mud Creek slide on Highway 1 south of Big Sur on Monday, May 7, 2018. (Vern Fisher \u2013 Monterey Herald Archives) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe do put a lot of resources into maintaining Highway 1 on the Big Sur coast,\u201d said Drabinski. \u201cIt\u2019s prompted out of service to the residents and businesses of the Big Sur community and to the travelers who return there because of its natural wonder.\u201d<\/p>\n