A beautiful stretch of Highway 1 near Big Sur that collapsed this week due to a winter storm is costing millions of dollars to repair, and it is unclear how long it will take before the lane is repaired, officials said.
The highway took place about 25 miles south of Big Sur on Thursday, officials said.
Caltrans had earlier closed 40km of Highway 1 between Fullers Lookout and the San Luis Obispo County line after a winter storm threatened mudslides near the Dolan Fire burn. The veld fire burned more than 128,000 hectares last autumn, destroying vegetation and weakening the soil.
“We wanted the closure to take place just for evacuation,” Caltrans spokesman Jim Shivers said. Evacuation orders were never issued for the section of highway that collapsed, Shivers said.
Shivers said Caltrans maintenance teams discovered the section of the collapsed highway around 4 p.m. Thursday. Caltrans has issued an emergency contract to Papich Construction, he said.
The company will work among Caltrans engineers to ensure the repairs are up to the standards, Shivers said. There is no timetable for completing the project.
The destruction is known as a slip, a collapse that occurs when the ground on either side of the road is so saturated that nothing can hold it, Shivers said.
The rainfall in the central coast this week amounted to 15 centimeters and caused mud flow that damaged at least 25 structures in the area.
Firefighters on Thursday used earth-moving equipment to rescue a horse and pony from deep mud near the Sierra de Salinas mountain range on the northeast side of the River fire fire scar. The veld fire burned more than 48,000 hectares last autumn. The ground there is unstable and, without vegetation to hold it, with an increased risk of debris flow and mudslides.
A winter storm hit the region Thursday before moving to Southern California, bringing moderate mudslides to Orange County and falling to the beaches of Los Angeles.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.