Road closed by mudslides leaves Montecito without a lifeline
Critical north-south US highway in Calif. is swamped by debris
MONTECITO, Calif. – The mighty 101 has fallen silent, closed indefinitely after floods early last week piled a stinking, dangerous mess of watery mud and debris onto a short section of the California highway.
Authorities have no idea when the six-lane U.S. Highway 101 will reopen but acknowledge it could be weeks if the damage is as bad as feared.
They’re pleading for patience, especially since the closure is also causing additional crashes as frustrated drivers seek alternate routes.
“I wish I could tell you when Highway 101 will reopen. I can only tell you that it will,” said Jim Shivers, a spokesman for Caltrans, the state’s road department. “We fight the battle every day for the citizens of California, and we, like everyone else here, will be happy when we can say that things are back to normal.”
The closure of California’s main coastal road demonstrates just how badly these mudslides have damaged this picturesque seaside town, which is also reeling from the flooding-related deaths of at least 20 residents after the storm early Tuesday morning.
The storm destroyed at least 65 homes and damaged at least 460 more, authorities said. Firefighters are continuing their painstaking work of combing through the debris with heavy equipment and hand tools, aware more bodies are likely buried beneath. At least four people remain missing.
The road’s closure has severely limited northsouth coastal truck traffic and come Tuesday morning will hamper commutes of people who live in lessexpensive Ventura County and drive north into Santa Barbara County for work.
More than 70,000 vehicles a day, on average, use the 101 through Montecito, according to state statistics. People who must travel are now crowding onto Amtrak’s train service or catching ferries rather than making the five-hour road detour.
On the ground, and in context of the road’s overall length, the slide doesn’t look that big — about a quarter-mile of watery, sticky mud at a low point between Montecito’s small downtown and the ocean. In other areas, the mudslides simply ran beneath or
People who must travel on the 101 are now crowding onto trains or catching ferries rather than making the five-hour road detour.
across the road and into the ocean, leaving piles of dry debris that were quickly removed.
But millions of gallons of water and mud remain standing on the road, and workers are pumping it out with a fleet of 4,500-gallon vacuum trucks. Because there’s so much debris, filling each truck takes about an hour. Normally, the trucks can vacuum themselves full within 10 minutes.
“We’re making progress, but it’s slow progress,” said Terry Keath, a driver for Pacific Petroleum, a vacuum truck contractor hired to help with the cleanup. “This is just the start of it.”
The true road cleanup can’t begin until the water is gone, Shivers said, and water is still draining onto the road from adjacent mountainsides. Under normal circumstances, drains in the road would carry the water away, but these are anything but normal circumstances. The drains are plugged with ashy silt and logs, and it’s a difficult process to bring in the equipment necessary to clear each one before another storm arrives.
After the water levels drop, the debris will have to be hauled out, from cars and trailers to kayaks and surfboards.
Keath and his colleagues are working 24 hours a day until they remove that water, a goal that Keath speculated is weeks away. Shivers declined to offer any estimates for reopening the road because the debris might have damaged the roadway itself, requiring workers to repave it or even rebuild that entire section if it’s been undermined.