About 2,000 travelers were stranded when flash flooding divided a scenic California highway route during a busy Easter weekend trip.
A piece of the southbound lane of Highway 1 broke off near Big Sur and slid into the ocean, paralyzing traffic for hours Saturday afternoon.
California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) officials urged motorists to avoid the highway along the central coast.
The area was closed in both directions near the Rocky Creek Bridge, about 17 miles south of Monterey, after the road lost a patch of asphalt and the stone barrier separating it from the cliff edge.
Many of the stranded travelers had been passing through during the holidays and were forced to sleep in nearby accommodation or in their cars.
A piece of the southbound lane of Highway 1 and the stone barrier along the cliff’s edge fell into the water Saturday afternoon.
The damage caused road closures in both directions, leaving around 2,000 motorists stranded.
Many of the travelers had been passing through over the Easter weekend and were forced to take shelter in nearby hotels or sleep in their cars.
Linda Molinari and her boyfriend were among those who took shelter at Big Sur Lodge. which was designated an emergency shelter on Saturday night.
Talking with him New York TimesMolinari said the couple planned to do A day trip to Big Sur for lunch and ended up arriving around 4pm on Saturday.
After learning about the fragmented road, they chose to return, but encountered an obstacle and were told to turn around.
“We came here just to have lunch and go home, and now it’s like everyone is stuck here,” Molinari told the publication. “In all the little hotels and stuff, you could tell everyone was packed.”
The Big Sur River Inn and Ripplewood Resort also remained open, providing stranded travelers with bathrooms, food and Wi-Fi.
Around noon Sunday, park rangers began sorting travelers into convoys that would be guided around the gap in the asphalt.
Guests quickly dissipated from Big Sur Lodge, where sixty units were reserved Saturday night and only one unit remained occupied Sunday.
“We have removed almost all of our guests from the property,” front desk supervisor David Eaks told the San Francisco Chronicle. “Yesterday we were full and today we are empty.”
The slip was the result of a violent storm that hit the southwest Pacific coast over the weekend, causing heavy rain.
Rep. Jimmy Panetta (D-CA) pledged to “coordinate with our government partners at all levels” to ensure the highway is quickly repaired.
California Department of Transportation officials urged motorists to avoid the area due to additional road closures, even as convoys began operating in both directions.
A few hundred cars were waiting to travel north when the first convoy passed through the area and drove away after about an hour.
Caltrans spokesman Kevin Drabinski pleaded with people to avoid the area for the next few days.
While regular convoys would continue to operate at 8am and 4pm in both directions from Monday, the highway was plagued by other closures due to falling rocks and debris.
The slide was the result of a violent storm system that hit the southwestern Pacific coast, causing heavy rain and flash flooding.
Rep. Jimmy Panetta (D-CA), who represents the state’s 19th Congressional District, arrived on the scene to inspect the damage on Easter Sunday.
“We will continue to be present and coordinate with our government partners at all levels and work to ensure the federal government plays its role in supporting Caltrans’s rapid road repair,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
It is unknown when repairs will begin or how long they will last.
Slides are nothing new on Highway 1. The last collapse occurred in January 2021, when landslides swept a 150-foot chunk of pavement into the sea, closing the area for nearly three months.
In May 2017, a series of storms caused slides that blocked Big Sur for more than a year.