San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Highway 1 stretch near Big Sur set to reopen
The tents, sleeping bags and tarps have remained mostly untouched in the general store Rick Aldinger manages in Big Sur. He can’t recall the last time he saw travelers staying longer than a couple hours to explore the thick stretch of Redwoods or traipse through Pfeiffer Beach, burrowing their feet into the purple sand.
But after nearly a year of construction, all of that could soon change.
Caltrans announced last week that the last closure of Highway 1 to Big Sur — a stretch known as Mud Creek near the southern Big Sur community of Gorda (Monterey County) — will reopen by the end of July, much to the relief of business owners who have been partially closed off from the outside world since a huge landslide in May 2017.
For people like Aldinger, the relief is measured.
“It’s not like a light switch that you’ll turn on when the road opens and we will back to normal business,” said Aldinger, the general manager of River Inn and Restaurant, which includes a restaurant, gas station, hotel and convenience store.
Early last year, ferocious winter storms dumped more than 60 inches of rain and pummeled the region, resulting in a series of landslides that destroyed a huge chunk of Highway 1. The devastation isolated many of the region’s businesses to cause a loss of revenue and, for some, unemployment.
Landslides aren’t unusual along Highway 1. Often, Mud Creek and other stretches of the coastal thoroughfare will be open only to locals who know how to navigate the terrain for certain parts of the year, said Susana Cruz, a spokeswoman for Caltrans.
But in May 2017, Mother Nature had a surprise in store for Mud Creek.
During what’s known as the Big Event, boulders the size of suburban houses demolished the highway. Mud Creek, meanwhile, was battered with mud, rocks and mush in the largest landslide in California history, Cruz said.
The landslide dumped more than 6 million cubic yards of debris onto Highway 1 and into the ocean, Caltrans said, and created 15 more acres of coastline.
Only two months earlier, Pfeiffer Canyon Bridge had closed when another major slide caused a jagged crack in the structure’s underbelly. Caltrans had to rebuild the bridge from scratch, and the closure lasted seven months, Cruz said. The 315-foot-long steel bridge reopened in October at a cost of $21.7 million — short of the estimated $24 million. The cost to repair Mud Creek is $54 million, Cruz said.
“Rebuilding Highway 1 and restoring traffic along the Big Sur coast has been our priority, and by opening the highway sooner than expected it will boost the many central coast communities affected by this major landslide,” said Richard Rosales, Caltrans’ acting District 5 director.
In August, officials announced that a new quartermile roadway will replace the site of the Mud Creek landslide.
The roadway will be flanked by embankments, berms, rocks, netting, culverts and other materials to support and protect the thoroughfare from future debris.
After the highway and bridge closures, Nepenthe — a popular restaurant that normally has an hour-long wait — had to close.
Nepenthe closed for nearly a month when it couldn’t receive supplies to keep the doors open, said manager Alicia Hahn Peterson. The restaurant set up offices in Carmel to help employees find other jobs and apply for unemployment. Once officials coordinated some access to the venue, Nepenthe opened for community events with limited hours and a curtailed menu. “Whatever we could do within our limits, it was great,” Peterson said.
Since Pfeiffer Canyon Bridge reopened, the business is almost back to where it once was, she said.
Aldinger said his business is starting to creep back to life since the bridge reopened, but it’s been a slow process. Normally at this time of year, River Inn would be at 100 percent occupancy, he said. Now, it’s down about 15 percent, which is better than early
this year, when the occupancy rate was down 30 percent.
Gasoline sales are also down 30 percent, he said, while the general store, which has camping supplies, is down close to 20 percent in sales. Business at the restaurant, he added, has remained mostly unharmed from all the disruption.
“I tried over and over again to predict what was going to happen next, and what people are going to do and what people would want, and I’ve been proven wrong so many times over the last year and a half,” Aldinger said.
The drop in sales has meant fewer hours for employees, but they’re starting to build back up.
With Mud Creek opening two months earlier than anticipated, both Aldinger and Peterson said they’re looking forward to seeing a steady stream of visitors come through again to enjoy the beauty of Big Sur.
After the reopening, Caltrans said, intermittent lane closures and roadwork will continue for several months.
“It’s been a heck of a year,” Peterson said. “We’re excited to see our neighbors to the south, and for there to be access all the way through Highway 1.”