CREWS CONTINUE TO MOVE FILL TO SOUTH END OF PAUL’S SLIDE
TO SUPPORT NEW ELEVATION OF ROADWAY
MONTEREY/SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTIES – Crews continue to work seven days a week on repairs at Paul’s Slide on Hwy. 1 on the Big Sur coast. Highway 1 remains closed to vehicle, bicycle, and pedestrian traffic for 1.5 miles, between Limekiln State Park to the south, and .6 miles south of the town of Lucia to the north.
Crews are building up the elevation of the south end of Paul’s Slide to support what will be the new course of the roadway. The repair design calls for the highway to move slightly inland and to be elevated at the southern approach.
The repair design will also increase the catchment area on the inland side of the highway which will be separated from the roadway by concrete barriers and fencing.
Geotech and hydrological engineers have completed the drainage design for the repairs which will capture water and debris and convey it below the roadway.
Due to dynamic conditions at the repair site as well as anticipated impacts associated with inclement weather in the upcoming months, there is no estimated time for full reopening of Highway 1 at Paul’s Slide at this time.
Road information and updates can also be found on Caltrans District 5 Social Media platforms: Twitter at: @CaltransD5, Facebook at: Caltrans Central Coast (District 5) and Instagram at: Caltrans_D5.
On the rugged south coast of Big Sur, the giant landslide dubbed “Paul’s Slide” has turned Highway 1 into the world’s most beautiful cul-de-sac.
A news release from Caltrans was announced at 3pm on Saturday, December 31, 2022 informing local residents that due to continued slide activity the gates at both the north and south sides of Paul’s Slide would be closed at 4:30 on that same day. (Ed note: January 4, 2023 at 5 pm is when the gates were closed as part of a full closure of highway 1 and they haven’t been opened since, per a news release posted on this blog at the time. See: https://bigsurkate.blog/2023/01/04/full-closure-of-highway-1-now-in-effect/)
The gates have been locked to nearly everyone—residents, visitors, emergency services, school busses, and mail carriers—since then. The only people permitted on the landslide, which spans across about a mile of Highway 1, are those contracted to work on the slide repairs.
For those visitors wishing to drive the scenic Pacific Coast Highway up the coast, this is an inconvenience. For those residents living here, this closure has meant a reshuffling of lifestyles. All of the work opportunities, health care facilities, and social aspects that the south coast residents usually have access to are now wholly inaccessible.
Soren Gilda, who, in spite of the closure, continued to pursue his goal of becoming a member of Big Sur Fire (BSF), a local nonprofit that trains and stations a crew of first responders, was met with major hurdles for his six-month training from January 2023 to June 2023. He lives south of Paul’s Slide and attended several training sessions per week for his certification. That meant making a drive to the northern BSF station, which normally would be an hour one way up Highway 1, but with the closure has now become at least four hours one way, detouring through the Salinas Valley and then south from Monterey.
Since Gilda’s graduation from BSF in June, he has only been able to respond to incidents south of Paul’s Slide along with the four other crew members who live on that portion of Big Sur. The five of them serve about 25 miles of coastline. He states “I’m happy to get certified, regardless of that obstacle. It’s important to have another first responder on this side of the closure.”
Kevin Drabinski, the public information officer for Caltrans District 5, explains that extensive repairs are being performed at the massive landslide and until there is a paved road, the gates will remain locked.
Extensive repairs include moving the lanes inland, raising the south end of the road, and creating a mile-long concrete K-rail barrier with netting along the northbound lane. Drabinskistates, “This redesign moves the road slightly inland and uses the contour of the mountain to create an extra catchment area, and it increases the width of that area. That expanded catchment area will allow our maintenance crews to get in there more easily and it accepts more debris—when the debris comes down—without filling up.”
This redesign also includes calculations from Caltrans geotechnicians, hydrologists, and civil engineers to determine the best way to design the road so that over time it provides efficient drainage. Drabinski refers to culverts as “the unseen superheroes of all the state highway system, but especially on Highway 1. They convey the water beneath the roadway and that means that we get to keep the roadway open longer.”
As to when there might be a paved lane on Paul’s Slide, Drabinski refers to this as “the million-dollar question.” Although the weather has been fairly dry since April, the crews have seen consistent slide activity since cutting the mountain. A wet season with rain and slide activity makes forecasting a road opening a guessing game.
Debbie Gold, the superintendent and principal for Pacific Valley School in the Big Sur Unified School District, has been juggling the complexities of having the school district physically cut in half by Paul’s Slide. The school, which serves a small population of 17 enrolled students K-12, now has nine students who live north of Paul’s Slide and cannot get across to school. The school is located eight miles south of the landslide.
Last year’s middle school teacher had to find another job for the 2023-2024 school year because there was no way for him to get there from his home north of the closure. She remarks that finding teachers to fill positions is challenging because “it’s really hard to have a school in such a remote area without access from both directions. It was hard to hire a teacher because so many people who were interested lived north of the slide, and when they found out that the slide wasn’t opening they pulled their applications.”
Gold, who lives close to the Bay Area, would normally drive three and a half hours to Pacific Valley School and stay Sunday through Thursday every week in an on-site cabin to work in-person at the school. Now her drive takes up to seven hours one-way with traffic and that long drive causes her to work remotely most of the time. She misses her role as a principal and the personal interactions that she would normally experience with students and staff.
Gold says that now “I work from home. Thank goodness for Zoom. And, I’m really looking forward to the road being open so that I can just zoom down and be there in person.”
With an El Niño weather event forecasted for the upcoming winter, the reopening of Paul’s Slide remains, literally and figuratively, up in the air.
Joyce Vance began her “Civil Discourse” newsletter last night with the following opening paragraph and I thought it was so good, I had to share her idea. I will be doing this with my morning coffee this am. How about you?
”As we head into Monday, consider extending your personal observance of Veterans Day, which fell on Saturday this year (the World War I armistice was signed at 11:11 on the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 and the commemoration is always on that date), by making a call this week to Alabama Senator “Coach” Tommy Tuberville’s Washington, D.C., office. Make sure he knows how upset you are that he’s blocking military promotions, which he’s doing because he thinks he’s entitled to dictate what kind of medical care women who serve our country in the military can have access to. When I called earlier this weekend, his voicemail box was full, but you can always leave yourself a reminder to call later in the week. Here’s his office number: 202-224-4124.”
Update on CA storm scenario next week: “An active weather pattern still likely Tue-Sat, but details have changed considerably from last week. Storm now looks much warmer, w/strong subtropical influence. Hence, freezing line will be high & mountains may see rain vs snow.”
As NOAA/NWS says, the forecasts models are almost outrageous for these upcoming storms with their wide spreads, so much so, that they are almost unusable. For what it is worth, here it is:
“Significant uncertainty remains in the exact rainfall totals through the week. The current forecast calls for rain to begin late Monday and continue through Friday, with roughly 2-3 inches for most areas. More rain is expected in the coastal mountains with less in any valleys with terrain shelter to the south. While the forecast hasn`t changed significantly, the ensemble guidance continues to indicate a wide range of possible outcomes. In fact, the NBM 90th and 10th percentiles were almost outrageous, with over 10 inches on the high end and only a trace on the low end. While that`s a safe range, it`s not very useful. The GEFS and ECMWF EPS are more reasonable, but still show an equal potential for 1/2″ or 4″. Normally this spread would be tighter by now, but the fact that the main driver is a quasi-stationary low makes the forecast more uncertain that a typical fast moving cold front, for example. One look at the deterministic GFS vs ECMWF show that by Friday the low could still be spinning in the waters off the Bay Area, or making landfall as an open trough in Southern California. Without much steering flow, it`s difficult to pin down the details and the uncertainty will likely remain high even as the event begins.”
Aside from an initial band and latter pulses of moderate rainfall throughout the event, upslope moisture transport remains elevated through late Thursday. This will allow for substantial orographic enhancement along favored coastal ranges such as the Santa Lucia and Santa Cruz Mtns.
Touching on previous discussions and details regarding model uncertainty; really not much change in the forecast today. Ensemble guidance still on the order of 1″ across most lower elevation locations, 2-3″ for coastal areas, locally up to 3-4″ for coastal ranges across the period from Tuesday to Thursday.
This Veterans Day, I am a bit tired from having to deal with a veteran ex’s medical issues. We both are vets, which is helpful in navigating the VA Health Care system, but it is still work to be a medical advocate for someone who is a different person every day. Trying to meet him where he is a moving target due to his TBI. So, please forgive me for digging into prior Veteran’s Day posts to bring you this long and very personal one.
This is last year’s post, which quotes my post from 2018. There are many things I could add due to the elections this past Tuesday, again. Ohio has now joined California in constitutionally protecting reproductive choices for women. It won by a wide margin of 56.6% to 43.4% of the vote. It is predicted to be THE galvanizing issue of the 2024 election, and yet, the GOP is not listening, but we women are. We are listening to the legislators who are trying to force their will on the majority and we are listening to each other and supporting each other.
What does all of this have to do with Veterans Day? My post of last year and of 5 years ago will explain what the political climate has to do with MY Veterans Day.
This is what I wrote in 2018, 4 (5 now) years ago, after another election. It is just as true today, even more so, after this latest election. I am again hopeful .
A partial repeat: In 1967, the Summer of Love was over. Viet Nam protests were barely beginning, and I found myself without a place to live, and had quit a job with an abusive boss. I did not know what to do, and so I joined the USWACs. The Army was segregated in those days — not by race, but by sex. All WAC training was held at Ft. McClellan, AL and so the Army flew me out to begin my training. It was in Alabama, in 1967 that I first observed racial segregation. I saw “whites-only” bathrooms and water faucets. They were NOT just a “left-over” relic from an earlier and sad time. They were a commentary on how far we still had to come, and have come. Racial segregation, at least not overt, was minimal in California. It was still rampant in Alabama when I was there.
In 1968 I was stationed at Ft. Huachuca, AZ at the Combat Surveillance School/Training Center Headquarters. (Spook School) I was on my way home to California when an automobile accident almost took my life, and did take my leg.
I ended up at the Veteran’s Hospital in West LA, associated with UCLA medical center. The medical care there was the best available. What wasn’t the best, was how they treated women veterans. We were a rarity, and the VA was not set up to deal with us.
There were no changing rooms for physical therapy for women vets, and I was the only one in the program. They had me use a broom closet. Of the over 400 bed hospital, only 16 were for women, and we had a separate open ward.
In 2018, more women have been elected to state and federal offices than ever before in history and more people of color are fulfilling their dreams of public service. There was both a blue wave and an estrogen wave. In my lifetime, women have traversed a difficult path with determination and with grace. We are making a difference.
In 2022 (and in 2024), women were motivated by the USSC’s overturning of Roe v Wade to vote, to run for office, and to win. Some states, like California, have now included women’s bodily autonomy into our state constitution. Women’s choices over their own bodies are now protected in some states. There is an underground movement to support and facilitate “camping” by women coming from a repressive state to a progressive state for health care. It is part of social media, now. I have been a witness to this movement.
…This past Tuesday, there WAS a shift in the American conscience. We achieved so much and overcame much of the hatred and racism which had infected some of our leaders. We told them, NO MORE. I could not be prouder of us and how we are taking back our democracy from those who have been trying to destroy it for the last couple years. (That treat is still present and being fought today in 2023.) We are a nation that is inclusive, not divisive. We are becoming stronger than ever before. America is powerful because of our diversity. Let us celebrate how much stronger our love is than the hate. Blessings to all our veterans and those who support them.
This is one of the comments on that post from 2018 that is another important reminder that I’d like to include here:
CONSTANCE NAGI, MD (SAN DIEGO)EditThank you, ‘Big Sur Kate’ , for being a ‘Call to Change’ … {and not a ‘Call to Arms…’}I too served … in the US Navy Medical Corps, starting ‘Active Duty’ in San Siego in 1978, when women were still not allowed on Navy Ships … My starting Medical School Class at U of Florida in 1973 was only @ 7% women (in my ‘Interview’ I was asked by a PhD ‘male Professor’ – ‘What would I do if I got pregnant during Medical School?’) … Now @ half of most Med School Classes are women … AND there are now women Navy Admirals! (I myself am ‘USN, Captain, Retired… ), managing to ‘traverse’ those early ‘murky Professional Waters…’ in both Medicine AND the Military…Thank you for YOUR Service … both in the US Army ‘WACS’ … and for your BigSurKate Blog…! Read & loved by many of us …
Significant rain is likely next week. Here’s a look at the probability of exceeding 1″, 2″, and 3″ from Tuesday-Thursday. Use the weekend to clear the gutters and replace the wipers.
KION tells us: “There is still a lot of uncertainty as to how this trough will impact our area, but there is definitely potential for a stronger storm with gusty winds and heavy rain. There is also some bust potential. Rain could start as early as Tuesday, but the Wednesday-Thursday timeframe is looking more likely for rain & wind. The forecast will likely evolve, so make sure to stay tuned.”
“By Monday, an unusually deep low pressure system will set up shop to the west of California and sit there for much of the following week–bringing multiple opportunities for (possibly significant) rain, wind, and mountain snow. This low pressure system will become “quasi-stationary” as it lingers offshore west of San Francisco for several days thanks to upstream blocking near the Aleutian Islands, allowing for the passage of both a primary and possibly multiple secondary cold/cool fronts over several days. At least one or two of these will be associated with (most likely) weak-to-moderate atmospheric rivers.”
“In this case, though it’s not the atmospheric rivers themselves that will be responsible for the most significant weather: the favorable position of these low pressure systems will place California, at various points next week, under regions of divergent flow aloft thanks to multiple jet streaks moving overhead. That’s generally favorable for the development of surface low pressure and storm strengthening, which is fairly unusual for this early in the season. Additionally, there are some early indications that there may be at least a modest amount of atmospheric instability associated with next week’s systems (possibly enhanced by unusually warm near-shore ocean temperatures along nearly the entire CA coast at present) and possibly some subtropical moisture in the mix as well. That might help increase the likelihood of downpours and possibly some isolated thunderstorms despite the relatively modest atmospheric river conditions most likely to be associated with next week’s system(s).”
El Niño predictions
“I’ve [Dr. Daniel Swain] been closely following the ongoing development of El Niño since late spring, here on the blog and elsewhere, and so far long-lead predictions of where we’d be by November have actually been spot-on. A strong, and still strengthening east-based El Niño was predicted for November 2023–and that’s exactly what we’ve got right now. Nino 3.4 region ocean temperature anomalies have reached levels typically associated with “strong” events, and are expected to rise still further over the next 1-2 months. Right now, a large number of ensemble members from most of the world’s major modeling centers is suggesting that the present event will peak sometime between December and February at “super El Nino” levels (i.e., becoming a historically rare “very strong” event).“
Dr. Swain continues on with a fascinating in depth discussion of this year’s El Niño event here: https://weatherwest.com/
Stay tuned as meteorologists fine-tune next weeks forecast, and make sure to follow your favorite forecasters.
WHEN: Nov. 8, 2023, 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. (virtual) These public forums provide an opportunity for the public to engage with the CPUC regarding access to essential communications services and service quality, particularly pertaining to access concerns raised in the CPUC’s proceeding to implement the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program.
Consumers are encouraged to discuss all aspects of broadband service, especially whether broadband service affects access to critical information and vital services such as education, job search resources, and healthcare. Additionally, the CPUC is interested in hearing about difficulties encountered with the quality and accessibility of Internet service.
Additional information is also available at the link above.
Please feel free to share with others in the Big Sur Area!
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is still considering a proposal to gut some of our state’s bedrock solar policies, specifically those that allow renters, schools, and farms to benefit from rooftop solar and save on their utility bills.
Because of advocacy from volunteers like you, the CPUC has delayed this vote twice and is now expected to vote on this proposed decision on Thursday, November 16.
The current proposed decision on Virtual Net Energy Metering (VNEM) and Net Energy Metering Aggregation (NEMA) would drastically cut the value of solar for renters and could make it less likely for energy storage to be installed in the future – right at the time when California needs to increase solar and battery storage to reach our clean energy goals.
More than 40% of Californians rent and over half of renters are “rent-burdened”, meaning that they spend more than 30% of their household income on rent and utilities. VNEM benefits rent-burdened Californians by crediting the energy generated onsite towards the electricity bill and allowing renters and building owners to share in the savings. We need the state to do more to ensure that everyone can participate in the clean energy transition and benefit from the bill savings that rooftop solar can provide.
Brandon Dawson