Rainwater opens 30-foot sinkhole, damages properties near Paso Robles
Two days of stormy weather and pouring rain opened a sinkhole in a rural North County neighborhood between Paso Robles and San Miguel.
Residents spotted the sinkhole on Thursday morning, when water from a stream created by rain poured into a waterfall-like hole on the shoulder of Monterey Road near Wellsona Road.
There was an existing hole in the road shoulder prior to the storm, but the rain eroded the soil and opened up the hole, said John Waddell, deputy director of San Luis Obispo County Public Works.
“Roadside drainage followed a gopher hole and eroded a 30- to 50-foot section of the road shoulder upstream of a culvert inlet,” Waddell wrote in an email. “In the pictures, you can see the initial hole that leads to the larger eroded area and culvert inlet.”
Road crews will repair the hole in the next few days “as resources are available,” he said.
Steven Dubiel lives on Monterey Road, just one house over from the sinkhole.
The stream of water that created the sinkhole also flooded Dubiel’s property.
“This costs a lot of money,” he said. “What do I do now? Do I go to my insurance?”
Dubiel dry farms 2 acres of watermelons. He plants barley as a cover crop and said the flooding seriously damaged his farming operation.
“It’s a nightmare,” he said. “Especially because I was all set up for spring. Now barley’s starting to come up, (and) now it’s all washed away.”
