KRV residents: Life along Highway 178 is difficult, but doable during storms
On a good day, there are five ways into the Kern River Valley. Unfortunately, for those who live there, it hasn’t been a good day in a couple of weeks.
At 4:30 a.m. Wednesday, Jonathon Magarett and a friend drove from his home in Lake Isabella, heading to Kern Medical. Magarett was scheduled for surgery, a removal of a tumor in his groin, something he wanted done before his trip to Montana this weekend.
They entered onto Highway 178, which at the time had just been reopened by authorities. The route was risky, due to its intermittent closure because of mudslides. But with his appointment at 8 a.m. and other roads closed at the time, it was their best option.
“We were rolling the dice,” Magarett said. “I saw some people had made it through and I turned to my friend saying ‘come on man, we gotta go, we gotta go.’ Once we started playing dodge-boulder it became (clear) we had to go back.”
They made it a quarter of the way before rockslides had caused three different accidents and forced everyone to turn around. Magarett, who co-owns the Haven RV Park next to Isabella Lake, headed back to his office, defeated.
“This isn’t the first time, but it is getting old,” Magarett said. “We can’t go to Bakersfield and take care of things we need to take care of. And I’m not the only one with stories like this.”
Since Friday, two atmospheric rivers have dominated the county’s mountain region. Low-lying areas have been battered by floods and highways have periodically closed while under the constant threat of rockslides that are increasingly prevalent in the
days following a storm.
Residents like Magarett have had to make the daily decision whether to cross the canyon, and risk being stuck on one side or the other in the event of a closure.
“The situation due to excessive rains is continuing to evolve, with flooding, mudslides and other hazards remaining a possibility in affected areas,” said Kern County First District Supervisor Phillip Peters, who represents the Kern River Valley. “For your safety and the safety of our first responders, please evacuate as soon as evacuation orders are issued.”
According to Caltrans, the state’s highway and roads department, Highway 178 has been shut four times in the past week, with the first closure lasting several days and the other two happening within a couple of hours on Wednesday.
The highway was closed around 11:40 a.m. Wednesday due to “boulders and mudslides throughout the canyon,” according to the California Highway Patrol.
“(Highway) 178 has a level of unpredictability with each storm,” said Christian Lukens, a spokesman for Caltrans. “That said, they (crews) are always prepared to execute a closure as soon as something happens.”
Frank Brassell, owner of Nelda’s Diner in Lake Isabella, said the closures have been annoying, but they’ve adapted this time as they have in the past.
“The folks up here, because we’re used to this, we just pay attention to Caltrans,” Brassell said. “If you get halfway through there and a rock falls on you — well, that’s just bad luck. You weren’t watching.”
Seated at the canyon entrance, Lake Isabella residents have had heavy rain and some flooding, but few reports of emergencies. Brassell said he doesn’t know anyone who has had to evacuate and with the exception of a raging Erksine Creek causing some street closures in town, all is nominal.
“The effect here has been pretty minimal,” Brassell said, laughing. “We ran out of CO2 and didn’t have Pepsi for a couple hours.”
Brassell said that fortunately they carry a large stockpile of groceries and sport a large menu while other restaurants, like fast food spots that focus around a single ingredient — like burger patties — generally have more trouble.
“If you’re out of one key ingredient — let’s say burger patties — that’s kind of a kiss of death,” Brassell said.
In the past, supply crews have trucked supplies up along highways 14 and 395 to the east and entered through the backside of the mountain.
“The canyon — it’s completely unpredictable,” Brassell said. “Three days after the storm the rocks can come down, or they can come down during the storm. That’s a fool’s game trying to predict that.”
And while Highway 178 and Bodfish County Road are expected to close, as they have, Brassell said the main scare is when Highway 58 closes, too.
“Because then, anything from the Bakersfield side — there’s no way it was getting here.”
Certain parts of Wofford Heights were closed Tuesday night after authorities declared it too dangerous to travel along and began evacuating people due to mudslides. Kernville, along some low-lying areas, such as the Frandy and Riverside Park campgrounds that bound the Kern River, was inundated with floodwaters.
Al Watson, a district ranger with the U.S. Forest Service in Kernville, said they evacuated campers March 9, before the storms entered the area.
“Luckily, it’s not a busy time of the year for camping right now,” Watson said.
The Kern County Fire Department on Wednesday continued to monitor water flow and snow melt within the Kern River Valley, Tillie Creek, Poso Creek and the McFarland/ Pond areas. It said all previously issued evacuation orders and warnings remain in effect.
When asked about the weather and how it’s impacted their livelihood, many residents chose to be optimistic, to focus on the good that can come from all the rain, like a bountiful Isabella Lake and a Kern River on Wednesday morning that gushed at around 22,000 cubic feet-per-second.
“It’s just like COVID,” Brassell said. “There’s some people that are going to huddle in their closet and then there’s the rest of us who are gonna go along with our lives.”
When asked about his next appointment, McGarrett said it will be another two and a half months until he can get seen again. And while he said it is not technically life-threatening, he is still in some pain and is a little concerned.
“When doctors looked at it they said, ‘we need to nip this in the bud right now,’” McGarrett said. “That was about six weeks ago… it is what it is.”
Despite missing the surgery, he still plans on seeing his family in Montana. They rented a three-bedroom cabin with a lake 500 feet from the front door.
“I wanted to get this over with, but I just need to get out,” McGarrett said.