Helicopter hauls away 50,000 pounds of tunneling equipment used to improve Highway 1

When Caltrans needs a lift, it’s a heavy-duty request.

On June 22, the state road agency enlisted the aid of a heavy-lift helicopter to remove bulky tunneling equipment used to help install a 10-foot-diameter, 1.25-inch-thick steel pipe culvert beneath Highway 1 at Rat Creek Canyon near Big Sur.

The week before, crews “successfully completed their tunneling operation from the east side of Rat Creek Canyon, through the fill underneath the roadway, and broke through where the culvert will outlet on the coast side of Highway 1,” according to a Caltrans news release.

Once the tunneling machinery was no longer needed, the release said, “it was broken into two segments, each weighing some 25,000 pounds,” the release said. “The helicopter made two lifts and the equipment was placed on the side of the highway where it will be transported off site.”

The big new pipe, which has a diameter that corresponds to how high off the ground a normal basketball hoop is mounted, will serve as the centerpiece of redundant drainage infrastructure at Rat Creek,” the release said.

Caltrans said the culvert “will substantially improve water flow capacity during future storm events.”

Drainage and unimpeded water flow is critical in many slide-prone Big Sur locations along Highway 1. Many portions of the scenic state highway are wedged onto cuts in steep hillsides.

In late January, an atmospheric river storm dropped about 17 inches of rainfall within a couple of days on the Rat Creek area. Debris flows clogged existing drainage, spewing over Highway 1 and undermining the pavement.

That resulted in a 150-foot chunk of the roadway dropping into the Pacific Ocean.

Papich Construction and Caltrans engineers, which did the emergency repairs on Highway 1 at Rat Crrek, determined that, during the fill construction portion of the project, tunneling the main culvert into place instead of installing it would allow for the reopening of the roadway four to six weeks earlier than originally planned, the release said.

Highway 1 reopened in April, just 86 days after that catastrophic January storm.

Kathe Tanner

The Tribune

805-781-7904 (voicemails only)

Kathe Tanner has been writing about the people and places of SLO County’s North Coast since 1981, first as a columnist and then also as a reporter. Her career has included stints as a bakery owner, public relations director, radio host, trail guide and jewelry designer. She has been a resident of Cambria for more than four decades, and if it’s happening in town, Kathe knows about it.