This little guy is wandering Nacimiento-Fergusson Rd. About a mile and 1/2 west of Ponderosa campground. USFS tried to approach, but it is spooked and wouldn’t let them. If you recognize this dog, please contact the owner. It is scared and wet and hungry and needs help.
9 am — Road conditions are likely to be changing hour-by-hour today, so keep an eye on the CHP website (link to the right under road conditions). Right now the 101 is flooding in King City near Wild Horse and there are rocks all over the road from the Little Sur to Rocky Point. I imagine Cal Trans will be trolling all day, but for those who don’t know, they stop patrolling at dark.
Also, Mary Adams’s office posted this on FB:
There is information available for employers and workers who may be impacted by COVID-19 from the Californian Employment Development Department.
https://www.edd.ca.gov/about_edd/coronavirus-2019.htm
That’s it for now. I will update as needed throughout the day. In the meantime, I have a very bored puppy who won’t go out in the rain (nor do I want her to as my floor is already a mess) who needs entertaining. Between the weather, the roads, and the coronavirus, it is a good day to stay home.
Dear Big Sur Community Members and Stakeholders,
We hope that all of you, and your families, are staying safe and healthy in these challenging times due to the Coronavirus. Although public health advisories in California and elsewhere have resulted in disruptions to daily schedules and planning, we want to let you know that the Beyond Green Travel team continues to move forward working on the Big Sur Sustainable Tourism Destination Stewardship Plan (DSP).
Among the most important goals is to continue to collect feedback and comments from the Big Sur community. Given the need to adjust to new public health protocols, including avoiding public meetings and gatherings, we are extending the timeframe for completing the Big Sur Residents Survey to allow more residents of Big Sur the opportunity to complete it. We are happy to report that we have received 306 completed surveys to date and we hope to receive more, so if you have not yet filled out the survey, please do so soon. Here are the links in both English and Spanish. The survey will remain available until March 27:
Survey links:
English: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/bigsurdsp
Spanish: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/bigsurdspespanol
In addition, we wish to remind everyone that the Big Sur Destination Stewardship Plan comment website, www.bigsurdsp.com, remains open 24/7 to provide an easy way for you to share your thoughts, recommendations and ideas for how to better manage visitation to Big Sur for the future as part of the DSP multi-stakeholder process.
We wish you a healthy and enjoyable Spring season – a time for nature’s renewal and an inspiration for better days to come.
Best regards,
Costas Christ & The Beyond Green Travel Team
10 am update — From John Lindsey: “This hasn’t been the first time when the ‘Ides of March’ has saved our rainfall season, as evidenced by our Miracle March in 1991 and the floods of 1995. We could see rainfall accumulations of between 4 and 8 inches today through next Monday.” looking at his map, it looks like Big Sur is more likely to receive up to 10” of accumulations.
About 4 to 6 inches of rain in SLO county is expected starting this weekend through Friday, March 20, with multiple days of showers expected.
“This will be much much colder experience than the last storm,” said John Lindsey, PG&E meteorologist. “The last storm was a really warm storm system. We’re going from what was pretty warm rain to cold rain.
Forecasts show rain starting this weekend, lasting each day through Friday.
Monday and Tuesday will see some of the heaviest rainfall, with greater than a 80% expected on Monday and a 70% chance on Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service. Monday could see up to 1.25 inches of rain, Lindsey said.
Lindsey said that the weather pattern could bring snow levels reaching elevations of 3,000 feet.
“It will be a pretty impressive weather pattern,” Lindsey said.
Read more here: https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/weather-news/article241169446.html?#storylink=cpy
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 13, 2020
Contact: Doug Thurston
Race Director and Executive Director 831-625-6226 / doug@bsim.org
Big Sur Marathon to Postpone Due to Growing Coronavirus Threat
Race organizers work to establish a new 2020 date, targeted for late summer or early fall.
CARMEL, CA – Organizers of the 35th Annual Big Sur International Marathon, originally set for Sunday, April 26th, have announced that the race will be postponed until later this year. Over the past several weeks, the Big Sur Marathon Foundation has been monitoring updates from county, state, federal, and international public safety and health agencies regarding the global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. With state and local efforts to control the virus expanding quickly, the Foundation’s governance board, medical director, and race officials decided that postponing the race is the best way to help ensure the safety of participants, volunteers, spectators, and residents.
Race officials are currently coordinating with local agencies, partners, and other impacted entities to secure a reschedule date for the 2020 Big Sur Marathon, Relay, 21-Miler, 11-Miler, 12K, and 5K. They aim to reschedule for late summer or early fall and plan to update participants as soon as a date is secured. The By-the-Bay 3K, which draws roughly 4,500 schoolchildren from Monterey County Schools each year, will not be rescheduled for 2020.
“Like our participants, we were disappointed to have to move the race to a later date, but we
strongly feel it is the responsible thing to do,” said Doug Thurston, Race Director and Executive
Director of the Big Sur Marathon Foundation. “This situation is moving so quickly locally,
nationally, and world-wide and we all have to work together to try to stop the spread of this
virus.”
Registered runners in the 2020 Big Sur Marathon weekend of events will be given the chance to
run their race on the rescheduled date or choose from other options, the details of which are in
process. Thurston said all options will be made public as soon as possible.
“We understand a postponement might not work for some of our participants and we are
working hard to determine alternate options for those runners,” Thurston said. “We appreciate
the patience, understanding, and concern of all those affected during this stressful time.”
The mission of the Big Sur Marathon Foundation is to “create beautiful running events that promote health and benefit [the Monterey County] community.” This year, the marathon and other race weekend distances were scheduled to receive a sold-out, 13,000-plus participant field from all 50 U.S. states and 40 countries. To hold the Big Sur Marathon next month would be in direct opposition to the organization’s mission of promoting health. The swiftly evolving nature of the COVID-19 pandemic caused race officials also to consider the event’s potential impact on local health care and public safety resources.
“When we conduct one of our races, we partner with several local health-care and public safety resources. We need to ensure that these resources are available for our community,” said Thurston.
The Big Sur International Marathon is produced by the Big Sur Marathon Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the health of the Monterey County community. The organization carries out its mission by providing grants to local groups who volunteer at Foundation races throughout the year and other charitable programs including the year-round JUST RUN youth fitness program.
The 2020 Big Sur Marathon is the third Foundation event to be affected by situations outside the organization’s control. The Salinas Valley Half Marathon in 2016 and the Monterey Bay Half Marathon in 2018 were canceled due to poor air quality from nearby wildfires.
Big Sur Marathon officials are looking forward to the opportunity for entrants to run on iconic Highway 1 at a future date in 2020. For questions regarding the postponement of the 2020 Big Sur Marathon, please visit https://www.bigsurmarathon.org/2020/03/09/coronavirusupdate/
or send an email to info@bsim.org.
About the Big Sur Marathon Foundation
The Big Sur Marathon Foundation is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to create beautiful running events that promote health and benefit the community. Under the brand are three individual race weekends: Big Sur International Marathon in April, Run in the Name of Love 5K and 2K in June, and the Monterey Bay Half Marathon, 5K and 3K in November. In addition, the Foundation oversees the award-winning JUST RUN® youth fitness program. http://www.bsim.org
Media Contact:
Doug Thurston, Big Sur Marathon Foundation doug@bsim.org / 831-625-6226
Hello Big Sur Community,
Out of an abundance of caution, and in the interest of current affairs and concerns over Covid-10, Supervisor Adams and Congressman Panetta have cancelled the Big Sur Multi-Agency Advisory Council meeting. Attached please find a meeting cancellation notice. I am also attaching draft minutes from the November 1, 2020 meeting and written reports that I received from the South Coast, Monterey County’s Big Sur projects status update, and Caltrans project status update.
Martha Karstens asked if I could report is that there is a CERT training starting April 18th. It is a total of 3, 8 hour days. May 2nd and May 9th are the other 2 days. It will be held here in Big Sur and they still have available space. They would love to get more people from the South Coast.
Here is a link to the Monterey County Health Department website on the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-NCoV Or COVID-19):
This webpage is being regularly updated as it becomes available and includes local information, as well as information from the State and the CDC. Monterey County Health Officials continue to work closely with local hospitals, medical providers, emergency medical service agencies, federal and state officials, and other community partners to detect possible cases of COVID-19, facilitate testing, reduce the chances of local transmission of the virus, and safeguard the health of our communities.
Our office is receiving numerous calls and e-mails from concerns residents. We are coordinating with the appropriate County staff to relay the frequently asked questions we are hearing. We are working with them to get answers posted to the Health Department’s page as they become available.
We appreciate the resiliency of the people in Big Sur and stand with you in spirit!
Sarah Hardgrave
Policy Analyst
Office of Supervisor Mary L. Adams
While both CABS and Big Sur Chamber posted the notification re this meeting, I challenged the advisability given the current pandemic. I wanted to get a response to my inquiry before I published and this afternoon, I got it:
Hello Kate,
We appreciate your concern and agree that holding a meeting at this time would pose an unnecessary risk to the public. Upon speaking with Caltrans executive management, the project development team has decided to cancel the upcoming public scoping meeting for the Big Sur Bridge Rail Replacement Program. We will still be engaging in public outreach to get some public input from the locals, but will not be holding a meeting on March 18th. I will send you an updated public notice with a link to a website providing project information. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Thank you,
Scott Ostrau
Associate Environmental Planner
Caltrans District 5, SLO
This is not my usual area of information to post, but given the panic that is going on with four of the Grand Princess passengers — all of whom have been tested and are negative for COVID-19 — that is going on in Monterey County as evidenced on social media. However, I think it prudent to reiterate that caution, not panic, is a much more effective response, and to assist readers in locating sources for accurate, timely information.
Today, WHO, World Health Organization, has declared this a pandemic due to it wide spread globally, and due to the lack of preparedness by some countries. Also today, Trump cut short a briefing by leading experts in order to have “an emergency meeting.” In my opinion, he cut it short because Dr. Fauci was speaking to fact, not fiction. Dr. Fauci was publicly contradicting talking points from WH and VP’s office. Dr. Fauci spoke to underlying the severity of the situation we’re in right now. This is the first appearance where we’re really getting somewhat of a full picture.
Today, the California Department of Public Health published this:
State has launched an online hub that consolidates all available guidance
on how to prepare and protect Californians from COVID-19
SACRAMENTO – The California Department of Public Health today announced the most recent statistics on COVID-19. California now has 157 confirmed cases: this does not include passengers from the Grand Princess cruise ship currently docked in Oakland. For more information on the progress of the return of individuals from the Grand Princess cruise ship, see this update from ASPR and CalOES.
The California Department of Public Health has consolidated state guidance on how to prepare and protect Californians from COVID-19 in a single location.
You can find more information on this release here: http://www.oesnews.com/state-health-emergency-officials-announce-latest-covid-19-facts-2/
The “on-line hub” mentioned above contains: Guidance Documents: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): A list of various guidance documents can be found at this direct link: https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/Guidance.aspx
Also today, Dr. Robert Redfield and Dr. Anthony Fauci along with other emergency response officials testified on the coronavirus outbreak before the House Oversight & Reform Committee this morning. This hearing is the one Trump cut short. You can find it on C-Span here: https://www.c-span.org/video/?470224-1/federal-health-officials-testify-coronavirus-outbreak-response
There will be all sorts of inaccurate and sometimes dangerous information floating around on social media — particularly the sociological petrie dish we call Facebook. Don’t fall for the group think panic that is being perpetuated there. Instead, look for original information from reliable sources, like John Hopkins, CA OES, etc. Exercise caution, not panic, and feel free to post links to reliable, accurate information in the comments section.
State Parks will be hosting their monthly volunteer program at Garrapata State Park on Saturday, 3/21 from 10 am – 1 pm. Volunteers will be removing non-native, invasive weeds around Soberanes Creek to preserve native coastal scrub habitat.
Meet at the Soberanes Point Trailhead on the west side of Highway 1 across from the Soberanes Canyon trailhead. Please bring water, a hat, a snack, and perhaps a lunch to enjoy mid-program. We will provide tools, loaner gloves, water, and training. All ages welcome. No experience or commitment necessary.
For more information, please contact volunteer.monterey@parks.ca.gov or call 831-574-9008.
Thank you.
Ruby Kwan-Davis, Forestry Aide, Volunteer Program Coordinator
California State Parks, Monterey District
