Calif.’s shattered Highway 101 leaves town without a lifeline
Frustration, paralysis mix with grief, loss after deadly mudslides in Montecito
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 roadway.
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 there have been more crashes since the closure 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.
The closure of California’s main coastal road demonstrates just how severely the mudslides have damaged this picturesque seaside town, which is simultaneously reeling from the floodingrelated deaths of at least 20 residents after the storm early Tuesday.
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 probably are buried beneath. At
least four people remain missing.
The closure has severely limited north-south coastal truck traffic, and come Tuesday it will hamper commutes of people who live in less-expensive Ventura County and drive north into Santa Barbara County for work.
More than 70,000 vehicles a day — cars, trucks and emergency vehicles — use the 101 through Montecito, state statistics show. People who need to travel are now crowding onto Amtrak’s Surfliner train service or catching ferries rather than make 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 one-quarter of a 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 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 on the road now, and in what seems a vain effort, workers are pumping it out with a fleet of 4,500gallon vacuum trucks. Because there’s so much debris, filling each truck takes about an hour. Workers in hazmat suits use shopping carts to block the worst of the tangle from the intakes. Normally, the trucks can vacuum themselves full within 10 minutes.
“This is just the start of it,” said Terry Keath, a driver for Pacific Petroleum, a vacuum truck contractor hired to help with the cleanup.
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 difficult to bring in equipment to clear each one before another storm arrives.
After the water levels drop, the debris will have to be hauled out: from stuck cars and trailers to kayaks, surfboards, snowboards, propane tanks, lawn furniture, garbage cans — even a pumpkin. In some places the debris appears to be
10 feet deep.
Keath and his colleagues are working
24 hours a day indefinitely until they remove that water, a goal Keath speculated is weeks away. Shivers declined to offer any estimates for reopening the road because the debris may have damaged the roadway itself, requiring workers to repave the top layer or even rebuild that entire section if it’s been undermined.
Several weeks is the best-guess time frame authorities have for letting evacuated residents back into their homes in the worst-damaged areas of Montecito, in part because they may have to also rebuild the water and sewer systems, along with the gas and electric service.
Authorities by Tuesday hope to have a system in place to help essential workers, including doctors and nurses, teachers and government staff, travel around the 101 closure through the disaster zone, possibly on buses escorted by emergency vehicles.
Meanwhile, people living outside the disaster zone are finding ways around the 101 closure.
Anne Redding, department chair of the School of Justice Studies at Santa Barbara City College, said she has Amtrak tickets in hand for the coming weeks. “I’ll just book trains and hotels and sleep on people’s couches for as long as it takes,” Redding said.
“We’ve just got to pack our patience and hope for the best.”
“We’ve just got to pack our patience and hope for the best.” Anne Redding Department chair, School of Justice Studies at Santa Barbara City College