Heavy rains slow repair work on road up to Hearst Castle
%20(1).jpg "Prior to the rain in early December, contractors working at Hearst Castle had covered the exposed dirt roadbed up to the hilltop with heavy plastic tarps weighed down by sandbags, trying to minimize the soil saturation from the storm. The force of the runoff was strong enough to shift some of the protective measures, leaving behind mud. Some cleanup had been done by the time this photo was taken on Dec. 15.")
Grind away the asphalt on the downhill side of about 2 miles of the access road to Hearst Castle, then add approximately 5 inches of rain in 24 hours and 2 more inches later, and what do you get?
A muddy mess and a rejiggered repair schedule for the culvert-and-road repair projects that have kept the public out of the world-famed state historical monument. The castle has been closed since March 2020.
The emergency-repair contracts for the two related projects by John Madonna Construction were for nearly $8 million to replace the culverts and $5.7 million to completely redo the 2.25 miles of pavement.
That’s nearly half of the 5-mile road from the Castle visitor center to the monument on the hilltop.
Dan Falat, superintendent of the State Parks district that includes Hearst Castle, said in a phone interview Friday, Dec. 17, that “engineers, my staff, geotech experts and inspectors from headquarters in Sacramento” dug in during the week after the Dec. 13-14 storm to see if the rain, runoff and underground flow of water had done any real damage.
In a flash of understatement, he said that “we had a significant amount of rain” in just that one storm, with more predicted Christmas week.
“It’s a very muddy dirt road at this point,” Falat said. “We just don’t know yet the extent of what damage was done, and where, and that’s why everybody was here, doing a comprehensive review.”
The superintendent explained that, “There’s definitely some potential for additional repairs with all that rain, all that amount of water at the top of the watershed, just as they’re doing the road removal and getting ready to put the new one in. It was bare ground, hit pretty hard, pretty quickly with a lot of rain. They’ve been grinding the asphalt on that side, leaving dirt and soil underneath. It’s very muddy and very wet. There’s a lot of water coming out. Those southern storms … hit that section pretty hard.”
The timing is a double-edged sword, he said. The good news? “I’d rather know now if we need to change something.”
The jury’s still out on whether those storms or other in December will significantly delay the reopening of the Castle and the visitor center. Falat said in late November that he was still standing by his earlier estimate that they’d be reopened in or close to the first quarter of 2022.
What they don’t yet know is if the incoming storms and the continuing flow down the watershed will add more damage to the mix. Before the storm, “it was already a construction area. They laid down tarps, but it got really boggy anyway. It definitely delayed us, but at this point, we don’t know the extent of that delay.”
By early December, John Madonna Construction had finished replacing 27 culverts that span the access road, with some of them going beneath the historic Pergola in the middle of the uphill and downhill lanes.
Did the new drainage ports work?
“Yes, for the most part everything held pretty well, we think,” Falat estimated cautiously. “There were some drainage issues, but were they due to debris and blockages, or problems with the system itself? We know the water flowed, and there was some mud and debris, which meant water couldn’t go in, but it was still flowing.”
Meanwhile, the experts will keep studying the situation, especially as new storms blow in to add more rain to the muddy mess.
“Those weather delays,” Falat said, “those will be the deciding factor.”
