Authorities are calling on drivers to avoid California Highway 1 along the Central Coast after a stretch of the scenic route collapsed during a storm over the weekend. Passover, forcing closures and leaving drivers stranded near Big Sur, officials said.
The collapse occurred amid heavy rain Saturday near the Rocky Creek Bridge, about 17 miles south of Monterey, causing large chunks of asphalt to fall into the sea from the southbound side of the two-lane highway. .
The road closed in both directions in the mountainous area of the state's central coast while engineers assessed the damage, the California Department of Transportation, or Caltrans, said.
“We are working on a plan to evacuate drivers from the area,” the California Highway Patrol said Saturday.
By midday Sunday, crews had determined that northbound travel was safe, and authorities began escorting drivers around the damaged stretch. About 300 vehicles were waiting to travel north when agents guided the first convoy through the area, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Some of the stranded motorists had spent the night in their cars, while others took shelter at the Big Sur Lodge hotel, a short distance from the scene, the newspaper said.
Caltrans spokesman Kevin Drabinski said convoys will continue to circulate periodically in the coming days as crews reinforce the highway, which has seen other closures due to rocks and debris in the lanes. He called on the population to avoid the area.
The famous highway has been subject to frequent closures due to landslides, landslides and avalanches due to extreme weather.
The slow-moving storm dumped heavy rain at lower elevations and more than a foot of snow at ski resorts in the Sierra Nevada near Lake Tahoe.
Ryan Kittell of the National Weather Service said this was a typical March system, but it wasn't an atmospheric river like many of the other storms that have hit the state in recent winters.
The storm left the San Francisco Bay Area on Friday and “moved south along the California coast,” taking most of the rain toward the Los Angeles area, Kittell said.
The storm later parked over Southern California, where it was expected to remain until Sunday night or Monday. A chance of showers and possible thunderstorms, with possible lightning and damaging winds, remains for portions of Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties.