7 large slides could keep Highway 1 closed to Big Sur for months. Take a look at the damage
Don’t expect the stretch of Highway 1 between San Simeon and Big Sur to reopen anytime soon, according to Caltrans.
The road agency has to clear seven large slides and stabilize some bluff areas before it can lift a total closure order for nearly 40 miles of the scenic highway, Caltrans District 5 spokesperson Kevin Drabinski told The Tribune on Wednesday in an email.
Drabinski said there’s no current estimate of when that segment of Highway 1 might reopen or where closures might be reduced or expanded.
“We haven’t set a firm number yet” for the price tag for all that work, Drabinski said Friday, because the situation keeps changing.
However, he said, “We expect the repair cost will be in the millions of dollars.”
The current closure area spans from the elephant seal rookery parking lot south of Piedras Blancas, about four miles north of San Simeon, to Lime Creek, 32 miles north of the border between Monterey and San Luis Obispo counties.
Where the closures are placed depends on several factors, Drabinski said.
“We are looking for locations that give a good line of sight and plenty of room to maneuver safely,” he said. “We can’t have motorhomes doing three-point turnarounds in the middle of the roadway.”
Highway 1 repair issues not limited to slides
According to Drabinski, repair issues in the Highway 1 closure area aren’t limited to clearing the slides.
“We have six locations where the embankment below the road has been eroded,” Drabinski said, and crews also have to address slope instability areas above the roadway.
Caltrans arranged a resupply convoy on Jan. 13 to take food, medicine and supplies to residents and businesses trapped within the closure area.
Since then, he said, there have been “multiple locations where slides have covered one or both lanes.”
The force behind slides was illustrated vividly by the “long stretches where the K-rail at the shoulder got pushed into the center divider,” Drabinski said.
According to Caltrans, the K-rail consists of 20-foot-long sections with pin and loop connections, each weighing approximately 8,000 pounds.
At Paul’s Slide, Drabinski said, those pins “were either sheared or pulled out of the ground.
In addition to the slide activity, rock nets were damaged. The nets are designed to provide a level of protection by catching falling debris and rocks and keep them off the road bed.
Polar Star slide heading toward utility pole
One of the worst slides is at Polar Star, about a mile south of Ragged Point Inn & Resort on Highway 1 and nine miles from the southern closure site.
Drabinski said Jan. 5 that the Polar Star slide is likely to shut off access to Highway 1 from San Luis Obispo County north to Big Sur “for several weeks to months.”
“Much work needs to be done to control the drainage issues on the surface and below the surface at this site,” Caltrans said in a news release. “This work is being conducted on an unpredictable, steep slope, near the top of the slide.”
Drabinski said that the slide “continues to recede back at the top,” heading toward a utility pole.
“There’s a vertical crack at the top of the slide that keeps edging its way away from the road,” he said. “Moving water will make that happen. … You have water continuing to course on and below the surface.”
Caltrans and its contractors are coordinating with PG&E to remove the pole soon, the release said.
Drabinski said Souza Construction of San Luis Obispo is doing repairs in the Polar Star area.
“Those repairs will be initiated from the top of the slope, knocking boulders and debris down to the two lanes below,” he explained.
That scenario makes it more difficult to plan ahead for public access through the construction area, he said.
No public travel is allowed now through the slide area “due to the treacherous and unstable nature of the slide,” but workers have created “an opening at the bottom of the slope where crews and equipment have been able to pass to the north side of the slide to address the drainage and slope from above.”
Drabinski said Caltrans first became concerned about the Polar Star location in December 2021.
Preventive measures were taken then, but they weren’t sufficient to stop the Jan. 5 slide.
Maintenance crews already have cleaned up “multiple smaller slides throughout the closure,” Drabinski said, but more keep cropping up.
Ragged Point Inn and its restaurant were closed as of Friday, as was the Gorda Springs resort and other businesses in the closure area.
New slides and slope failures
According to Caltrans, the situation at the Highway 1 closure is constantly evolving.
“New slides are occurring every day, even in areas where they have not previously occurred, due to the level of saturation of the soil due to the extended period of inclement weather,” Caltrans said in a Thursday news release. “Within the last 24 hours, inspections have reported multiple locations within the closure limits where slope failures above the roadbed extended well into the roadway.”
“At this time, Caltrans engineers and contractors on site indicate that the roadway is not safe for public travel at multiple locations,” the release said.
Given the area’s unstable conditions, Caltrans hasn’t set a date for its next resupply convoy.
“Caltrans is aware of the dire circumstances being faced by residents, as well as our own crew, within the closure area,” the agency said in its release, and has resuming resupply convoys a priority.
“We are in conversations about the field conditions multiple times a day with our field staff and contractors,” Caltrans said. “We will schedule the next convoy as soon as road conditions allow.”
This story was originally published January 22, 2023 at 5:30 AM.
