Hello everyone.  Avis here at Lucia. Been a crazy day today trying to get all the people trapped between the road closures to a safe place for the night.  And giving them a safe, dry place to hang out until we were sure they could not get through today. When I left work we had almost a full house and had made phone calls and arrangements for people to stay at different locations on the north coast. So thank you to everyone who worked with me today and helped to get these people to a safe location.

Officer Ben, thanks for stopping in to see us today. It was nice to see you and I hope you made it home safe and sound. Please leave a comment and let us know you’re okay.

I handed my camera to one of the bridge workers and asked if he had time to snap a few pics so everyone could see what the slide looks like. Below are those shots.

This first shot shows the roof of the loader working on the south side of the slide. This was the loader that got damaged. The windows were broken by rocks and the loader is out of commission for the moment but repairable. The operator is fine…thank goodness. He had a bloody nose and a cut on his forehead.

 

Thanks again to everyone who kept us informed on the situation. To all of the road warriors who worked so hard today in the wind, rain & falling rock. You are so brave and we appreciate you all. To all the other businesses I worked with on the phone today. And to the entire staff at Lucia. Everyone worked hard at making the stranded motorist feel safe, we fed them good food and offered warm safe rooms for them to stay at tonight.

5:00 pm – got an update from the Big Sur Health Center for all of us:

Big Sur Health Center update:

As always, the Big Sur community has 24-hour access to a physician on-call through the Big Sur Health Center.

During the road closure, our regular office hours of Monday-Friday, 10:00 – 1:00 and 2:00 to 5:00 will remain in effect; however, we have extended our services to accommodate urgent medical needs during hours when we are closed.

For clarification, we have changed our answering service message and that should be in place later tonight.

In the meantime, if you have a true medical emergency, please call 911.

If you have an urgent matter that can’t wait until the next business day, please call the health center and listen to the entire message. You will be put in contact with the MD on-call. That person will assess your need and either offer advice or call local health center personnel to make arrangements for you to be seen at the Big Sur Health Center.

The weather and road conditions have created an enormous staffing challenge for us and we are attempting to meet your needs as efficiently as possible. Please try to be patient, use emergency services judiciously, and most of all, be safe.

3:20 pm – Big Sur Valley is reporting no power. There are 2 P.G. and E workers between the slides, so hopefully, power can be reinstated, but just in case it can’t – find your candles, flashlights, batteries, and lanterns. Buy ice, if you can. Oh, and keep those freezers closed. It will help keep the food from unthawing any sooner than necessary.

My thoughts, and those of my readers outside the Valley are with you all. Be safe tonight, please.

2:40 pm – Per CHP website:

2:39PM ATTN SLO COMM: REQ BEAT UNITS BE MADE AWARE OF THIS CLOSURE, AND ANTICIPATED OPENING OF 1 LN AROUND DUSK FOR CALTRANS, EMERGENCY VEHS, AND CONSTRUCTION ONLY

2:00 pm – official word is that work has ceased for the day at the operation at Limekiln due to safety concerns. One Windor loader was damaged, although the operator was not injured. The slide will be reassessed first thing tomorrow morning. Hunker down, it is not worth someone’s life, and don’t forget the operator we lost in the big slide of 1983. We do not want a repeat.

Noon – Official word from Colin Jones, CT is that this slide will NOT be open all day. Hoping to have it cleared by dark, but LOTS of material is falling on the road plus precarious large rocks that need to be brought down. Confirmed that the slide is SOUTH of Limekiln and that the Los Padres sign is buried in rubble.

11:30, from Avis about an hour ago: “Road closure near Limekiln State Park. I just got done speaking with officer Ben Grasmuck with the CHP, in fact he is standing here now. Best case scenerio for road opening (at least one lane) is 4 hours and possably 8 hours. Ben said he would instruct the CHP office to call us at Lucia when they get the road open.”

10 am – Sorry, it took longer than usual to get gennie going due to rain. Confirmed that the road is closed south of Limekiln at a place called “The Chimney. One report is that it will be open around 1 pm, another report is that it will take most of the day to open. The official word from Cal-Trans is 1 pm. Re-open is completely dependent on weather, of course, and heaviest rains expected between 11 and 2. This slide is north of N-F Rd. by a couple miles (slide at 20.5, and N-F at 18.9), so Big Sur is effectively an island for the moment.

BIG SUR MILE MARKERS ARE ALWAYS LINKED TO THE RIGHT, CURRENTLY UNDER THE LA NINA 2010-2011 SECTION. DURING FIRES, IT IS STILL THERE, JUST SHIFTED TO THE FIRE SEASON. REDTAIL HAS A VERY GOOD, DETAILED LISTING AND THAT IS THE ONE I USE.

I am getting gas delivered today, if my road is passable, so should be good until Monday. I’ll try to get going earlier tomorrow morning. It has just been nine days of pretty much non-stop reporting now, and like some of you, I am getting tired.

1:00 pm – This update just received from Cal-Trans. (Ed. note: the contractor awarded the temporary repair is the same one working on the permanent repair down at Dani Creek near Lucia, a similar slip out.)
(1) Due to severe roadway damage to the southbound lane, a 2-mile section of Hwy. 1 at Rocky Creek (Post Mile
60.5) continues to be closed in both directions. The closure is north of Big Sur from the Bixby Creek Bridge to Palo Colorado Road, south of Carmel. This barricaded closure is for all travel including emergency vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists.

• Crews assessing the roadway have tentatively determined that, at the earliest, it will be nearly one month for a temporary repair to occur. Inclement weather and geologic instability continue to be a factor in roadwork progress.
• Condon Johnson & Associates of Oakland is the contractor for this $2.5 million emergency project and is currently mobilizing for the temporary repair. Drill rigs are on site and getting assembled while material for drilling vertical and horizontal soil nails in order to stabilize the remaining roadway section are arriving. This site is an active construction and the slope is still unstable so the roadway is unsafe for public access.
• All businesses along the coast on Hwy. 1 remain open directly and are directly accessible from the south. For access from the north, alternate routes include Highways 101, 68 and 46.
• More rain is expected in the Monterey Bay Area through the weekend.
• CHP is on site to secure the slide area and ensure safety for the public.
• Continuous updates will be provided as more information becomes available and/or conditions change.

I don’t repeat rumors (and there are a few of those flying as our isolation extends) , but I did hear from a reliable source that one or more locals created some problems at the closure yesterday. Let’s be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

11:30 am – there is a report of a slide at the bottom of Nacimiento-Fergusson Rd. However, it is possible to get past it at this time.

11:00 am – short but intense hail storm. Have received numerous reports that the road between Cambria and Big Sur is hanging tough, thanks to a wonderful Cal-Trans crew. Several people report making it through with no major difficulties.

9:30 am – I slept in after the storm kept me up much of the night. I woke to banshee winds around 2 am, and couldn’t get back to sleep until my my bed stopped rocking and rolling. It was howling! My son sent me some shots of the road south last night, so I’ll post those now. There are three of them. Pretty knarly out there!

**FLASH FLOOD WATCH***

Lots of emails to check and news to post but here are the photos taken this morning on the south end of our road.

Okay, that’s it for this morning’s photos. I am getting a few questions and it is much easier to answer them here, so all will know, rather than individually. Friend came over Nacimiento-Fergusson Rd this morning through base, all quiet and cleared, so that route is good. As to number to call for Cal-Trans re getting a foot path open, I would suggest the PIO Colin Jones. 805-549-3189. While I used to have (and may still) Steve Price’s number, a) I can’t find it, and b) I’m not authorized to give it out. Lastly, have heard nothing re road to the south, which is good news.

NOAA discussion: “AS OF 9:02 AM PDT WEDNESDAY…A FRONT HAS PASSED OVER THE FORECAST AREA THIS MORNING AND RESULTED IN PERIODS OF HIGH WIND AND MODERATE TO HEAVY RAIN. MANY RIVERS AND STREAMS DID RESPOND TO THIS RAIN BUT REMAIN WELL BELOW FLOOD STAGE. … THE LARGEST THREAT FROM THESE STORMS
WILL BE SCATTERED MODERATE TO HEAVY SHOWERS THROUGHOUT THE DAY TODAY. THESE SCATTERED MODERATE TO HEAVY SHOWERS WILL RESULT IN ADDITIONAL PONDING ON THE ROADS AND PERIODS OF RISES IN THE RIVERS AND STREAMS.

MODEL SOLUTIONS ARE INDICATING THAT A LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM
CURRENTLY LOCATED IN THE GULF OF ALASKA WILL RAPIDLY SLIDE
SOUTHEAST INTO NORTHERN CALIFORNIA THURSDAY EVENING. A SIGNIFICANT JET MAX…110 TO 120 KT…WILL ACCOMPANY THE SURFACE FRONT AND PRODUCE ANOTHER ROUND OF SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS FOR THE NORTHERN AND CENTRAL CALIFORNIA COAST. SOME OF THE SHOWERS WILL BE HEAVY AT TIMES. AFTER THE PAST FEW DAYS THE SOIL IS QUITE SATURATED AND RIVERS AND STREAMS WILL SEE A RAPID RESPONSE TO ANY ADDITIONAL PRECIPITATION.”

Let’s stay safe today!

Big Sur River and the little waterfall, which is now a good=sized one!

Remember that sweet, hidden little waterfall I post photos of every so often? Well, look at it now.

10:00 am – below is a google map of the area of the slide.

Some of us are wondering (and some of us doing more than wondering, but investigating) whether or not a work around might be possible as a temporary solution until one lane can be opened for local traffic only. However, a vehicular road would require at least one stream crossing (I’ve heard as many as 3) – definitely something presenting a myriad of obstacles. Overcoming all the anticipated problems mike take longer than the estimate for the repair of Highway One.

9:30 am – just spoke with Collin Jones of Cal-Trans about the current status. He wants everyone to know, particularly our businesses and tourists, that they are doing everything they can to get this road opened as soon as possible, but that April 16th is still the best current estimate. They are concerned about getting the site secured, and will have that accomplished soon, he believes. Cal-Trans understands the desire to have a foot path open, but there are three reasons that is not feasible at the moment. The first is the instability of the road itself; second, are the heavy rains expected later today, Thursday, and Saturday; lastly, the contract has been awarded and large heavy equipment, including two very large tractor-trailers are on their way to the site shortly. It will be crucial for us to stay out of their way in order to get this problem fixed.

From NOAA: AS OF 9:10 AM PDT TUESDAY…RADAR IS INDC SHOWERS OFF THE COAST…A COUPLE OF THEM LOOK TO BE MODERATE OR BRIEFLY HEAVY…. MODELS BRING QUITE A BIT OF RAIN TO THE DISTRICT TONIGHT AND WEDNESDAY…AS THE FRONT SEEMS TO BE SLOW MOVING. WINDS WILL BE GUSTY…BUT NOT EXPECTED TO REACH ADVISORY CRITERIA. REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THE WINDS WILL REACH ADVISORY CRITERIA WITH THE SATURATED SOILS THERE WILL BE THE STRONG POSSIBILITY OF TREES AND POWER LINES DOWN DURING THIS SYSTEM. THE NAM12 IS INDC PRETTY UNSTABLE CONDITIONS WED AFTN ACROSS THE DISTRICT…SO WILL PROBABLY EXPAND THE THUNDERSTORM CHANCES WED AFTN…CONTINUING INTO THE EVENING HOURS. THERE ARE ALSO HYDRO CONCERNS WITH THIS SYSTEM…WILL CONSIDER WHETHER TO UPGRADE THE HYDROLOGIC OUTLOOK FOR THE AFTN PACKAGE…AFTER THE 12Z ECMWF COMES IN.

9:00 am – Back on for the day, busy gathering information. A mixture of blue sky and high and low clouds. Expecting rain later. If the clouds ever lift from Cone Peak, I will take a photo.

Still sifting through emails, reports, etc. but will bring everyone up-to-date when I am.

Pacific Unified School District is holding classes tomorrow as usual. We have a break in the weather tomorrow, so a good time to run to get needed supplies. River Inn has reinstituted its locals nights, with $9.95 lunch/dinner choices (3 each night) until April 15th. A great time to meet/greet your neighbors and enjoy a meal together.

bigsurkate will be keeping to an abbreviated schedule the rest of this week, probably 9am – 6 pm in order to conserve my power sources until the weeked. Each evening I will be signing off with an “evening/morning updates” post like this one so that if something comes in while I am offline in the evening or morning, and it is something the community should be notified about, it can be posted in the comment section of this post below. If you have NEVER left a comment before, or have changed your email/computer/location, it will need to be approved before it will post, therefore forward it on to a regular reader/poster and ask them to comment for you.

Be safe, warm, and dry, and enjoy the short break we should have tonight and tomorrow. See y’all in the morning.

*IMPORTANT* There has been some confusion about pedestrian traffic. Cal-Trans has just asked that the ban against it be enforced by the CHP starting NOW. PLEASE do not attempt this until CT opens it up again.

For those of our northern neighbors who are unfamiliar with Cambria or King City, let me offer you the following information. First, there is only one main st – Main St. in Cambria. There are two “villages” – East Village, and West Village. East is the older more established section, and West is the more touristy, gallery section. Secondly, please see Bert Etling’s comment below. He is the editor of the Cambrian and has offered maps and phone books for Big Surians (and others). Cambria is a sweet little community, and as our business owners will recognize, the closure of Highway One will impact this small community, also.

1. As to wifi, there are many free “hot spots.” A favorite restaurant, Linn’s has great food, and wifi. Many other restaurants offer the same. There are two pizza parlors, Main St. Bar and Grill for great burgers, and the best wholesome, healthy food restaurant in town is Robin’s on (?? street), which dead ends at the Bank of America. (The name of this street will come to me, hopefully before I finish this blog post.)

2. Groceries – two grocery stores grace Cambria – Cookie Crock, which is very friendly, lots of parking, and probably used more by us south coasters. A note on this one, they require that they take your cart out for you and help load your groceries in your vehicle, so don’t demand that you do it yourself. The second store is Soto’s which is a bit more pricey but has some excellent food. Both have some organic and natural foods available. Of course, if one plans one’s trip for Friday there is a wonderful, if small, farmer’s market at the Vet’s Hall parking lot from 2:30 pm to 5:00. Lots of fresh, local, organic produce and other goods.

3. Laundromat – there is a laundromat in the Redwood Center and while doing laundry one can have lunch at either of two cafes.

4. The only hardware store left is an Ace in “Tin City.” It is off the main drag, take the same street that Robin’s is on, which deadends at the Bank of America, and go out of the downtown area to the first left up the hill, then down into Tin City – and hardware store will be easy to spot.

5. Pet food is available at Cookie Crock. There is also Hart’s, an animal rescue, but it specializes in cats.

6. If wanting to spend the night, I recommend staying on motel row in San Simeon, rather than Cambria, because it is much cheaper, and I know during the winter and during the week, many of the motels have given Big Sur discounts in the past. The only motel in Cambria which I have stayed in and which is decently priced is the Bluebird on the main drag. It is very nice, and has 4 rooms in the back on the creek with fireplaces that are lovely. Regular rooms as well.

7. Morro Bay is about 20 minutes further on, but has a greater variety of services. Many Cambrians shop and gas up there. There is a Motel 6 that will accept pets at the north end of town off of Highway One and 41. Many other motels, some of which will take pets.

8. King City – there is one decent shopping center. It has a Safeway with excellent prices, an Auto Zone, a CVS pharmacy, a Dollar Store, and other miscellaneous small shops. It is just off Broadway, the first right, easy to find. I have never stayed in King City, so I don’t know about lodging.

South Coasters, feel free to share your favorites, and North Coasters feel free to ask for suggestions. Namasté

7:30 pm – this from the NOAA discussion site: “WE SHOULD POINT OUT TOO THAT IT`S BEEN A FEW YEARS SINCE WE`VE SEEN A WELL DEVELOPED COMMA CLOUD/DRY SLOT SIGNATURE LIKE THE ONE PRESENTLY SEEN OFFSHORE SO BE PREPARED FOR STRONG…POSSIBLY DAMAGING…WINDS AND TORRENTIAL RAINS BOTH ON THE WATERS AND ON LAND TONIGHT AND SUNDAY.”

The gennie is out of fuel, and so I am down for the night and hunkered under the down comforter, with silk long johns, and Egyptian Cotton sheets. In Big Sur, no less. How lucky am I?

Anyway, all 8 photos are up, so scroll down to view them. I am going off line for the evening, but will start up again at around 9 am, assuming all systems are a go. Nite all, and enjoy the storm.

6:30 pm – URGENT – WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA
154 PM PDT SAT MAR 19 2011

…A POWERFUL STORM SYSTEM MAY PRODUCE STRONG AND DAMAGING WINDS FROM LATE TONIGHT THROUGH EARLY SUNDAY AFTERNOON…

A HIGH WIND WARNING MEANS A HAZARDOUS HIGH WIND EVENT IS EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. SUSTAINED WIND SPEEDS OF AT LEAST 40 MPH OR GUSTS OF 58 MPH OR MORE CAN LEAD TO PROPERTY DAMAGE.

5:00 pm – Just found this on today’s San Luis Obispo Tribune. “Resilient Big Sur residents tend to become used to all this. As Kathleen Novoa, Big Sur’s cyber town crier at http://bigsurkate.wordpress.com, wrote in her blog Thursday morning, ‘We will Sur-vive. We always do.'” Cyber town crier? How funny.

2:30 pm – still uploading photos, but in the mean time, I received a road report on Nasty-Fergy an hour or two ago from my son, who drove up the front side from Highway One to the summit. No slides, but plenty of rocks on the road, some about melon sized, so be careful. The next storm coming in tonight and tomorrow will result in even heavier rain, particularly in the Santa Cruz and Santa Lucia Mtns. Brace yourselves.

11 am – continuous rain, sleet, snow, but not yet sticking, although it is beginning to get slippery outside. Still uploading photos, but I did warn it would be an all day process. I haven’t had a chance to update the weather reports, but they are not looking good. My SLO forecaster is predicting 3-5 inches of rain in the coastal mountains. That is not good news for the increasingly fragile state of the south end of the highway, nor for the fixing of the Rocky Creek slip out.

9 am – I have received amazingly only an inch here since yesterday morning when I left for parts east and west. I say amazingly, because what I drove through yesterday was easily an inch an hour in many places and at many times. There was snow this morning at 8 am, but it did not stick.

A couple of quick notes, MST district is attempting to see what can be done to provide transportation to and from the slip out. Also, Monterey County is looking to declare this an emergency so that special funds might become available.

I tried to upload some photos taken by local Cal-Trans worker Brandie Kirby, and by our local CHP Officer Ben Grasmuck last night, but was unsuccessful. So, I will try today throughout the day. I have 3 from Ben, and 5 from Brandie. Brandie’s are high resolution, so they took a long time to download, and will take even longer to upload, but they are worth it. Those probably won’t be completely uploaded until this evening, unless I get a very good fast burst of internet.

I am very confident that I speak for the ENTIRE community when I say to both of you, and your fellow workers, you are greatly appreciated, respected, and honored by this community. During times like this, all of you have to put up with so much, under difficult if not impossible circumstances, and we appreciate you more than you can know!

Okay, one at a time. The next one will be uploaded shortly, but check back throughout the day for news and photos, but I haven’t started the gennie yet, waiting for a break or for my battery power to give out.

Weather not only affecting the road, it is affecting my internet!! Still trying to get all the photos posted. I had to resize Brandie’s as they were WAY to large. Will see what I can do.

These next five photos by Brandie tell quite the story. Each will be marked with the date but the time metadata is incorrect, as one fully daylight photo is marked with 10:30 pm. Without seeing the camera, I cannot guess as to whether it is just the am/pm or some other time discrepancy.