Inland highway cut by storms is expected to reopen Sunday
Commuters who travel between Ojai, Santa Paula cheer the
news
By Kathleen Wilson
kwilson@VenturaCountyStar.com
(April 29, 2005)
Janet Lindsay has put 8,000 miles on her truck since the
January storms chewed up Highway 150, forcing her and other
commuters to make 80-mile round trips to work. The bookkeeper
saw her gasoline bill shoot up to $700 a month as she drove
from her ranch lying on the wrong side of a gaping hole in
the road, through Ojai and Ventura to her job in Santa Paula.
She's become intimately familiar with the geography -- and
the coffee shops -- along the path she'd rather not take.
But the agony is expected to end by midday Sunday, when the
road between Santa Paula and Ojai opens for the first time
in 108 days. With the opening, the last major closure of a
state highway since the storms will end.
"I'm going to shoot off the loudest firecracker you can
see to express my joy," Lindsay said. "It will be
such a blessing I cannot explain it."
The January and February storms undermined, flooded and tore
up state and federal highways and county roads, causing almost
$60 million in damage in Ventura County. Among major roads,
Highway 150 and the Arnaz Grade of Highway 33 near Casitas
Springs sustained some of the more dramatic damage and are
taking months to repair.
Caltrans officials said crews have worked around the clock,
delayed other road-building projects, and put in thousands
of hours of overtime. Almost $24 million in emergency contracts
have been issued in Ventura County for repairs of state highways.
It will take an additional $35 million to repair and clean
up county roads and federal roads in the county, estimates
show.
"The biggest challenge is the volume of the work,"
said Dan Freeman, who oversaw the state road projects for
Caltrans. "We've just had slides all over."
Enormous movements of earth, electrical work on high-voltage
power lines, and environmental regulations have slowed the
pace as well. These were not garden-variety repairs, Freeman
said.
He said San Antonio Creek ate away the slope that supports
the road on the Arnaz Grade, forcing workers to replace the
slope and divert the creek water back to its original channel.
Although part of the highway is still restricted to one lane
in each direction, the $4 million job is expected to be completed
in a month.
On Highway 150, the storms left the road impassable at a
spot south of Thomas Aquinas College, cutting a hole 30 feet
into the ground. It cost an estimated $1.5 million to repair.
Caltrans Senior Engineer Joseph S. Tehrani said crews worked
around the clock in 12-hour shifts to rebuild the road. That
meant drilling steel beams through the earth and six to 10
feet into bedrock, then packing them in concrete. The beams
formed ribs for a retaining wall of treated wood between the
road and the rushing Santa Paula Creek. Drains to prevent
another washout were installed, the road was paved, and curbs
and gutters installed.
"This is the worst site and the only site that kept
the road closed," Tehrani said during a tour of the area
two weeks ago.
Even though the road will soon be passable, traffic will
be confined to one lane in sections. Four traffic signals
will regulate the flow. Tehrani said the highway may not be
completely restored until early fall.
But that's enough for commuters whose lives have been upended.
About 30 faculty and staff members at Thomas Aquinas College
can drive to the private campus instead of hiking up a canyon.
The school lies above the area that washed out, so employees
coming from Santa Paula either had to hike a mile or circle
close to 50 miles around through Ojai and down to the college.
They trekked uphill in jeans, T-shirts and hiking shoes,
then changed clothes once they got to the campus. Some days,
that meant shaking off the rain. Those leaving at night carried
flashlights.
Faculty member Kevin Kolbeck, who lives in Santa Paula, decided
to stay in a dormitory room two nights a week.
"I have some back problems, and the hike was giving
me some trouble," he said. "The hike up the canyon
was kind of jarring. It made it really uncomfortable to be
sitting or standing."
That left his wife, Michelle, at home with the kids. The
two have nine children, ages 10 to 24. Six still live at home.
"I don't see them as much as I did before," Kolbeck
said. "Fortunately, they're older now, so they're off
doing many things themselves."
He and others, though, saw some unexpected benefits.
"It's been nice being on campus and seeing kids more
outside of class," he said. "I have gotten some
exercise."
Michael McLean, dean of the college, believes most of the
faculty members have come to enjoy the walk and gotten to
know each other better.
Construction crews can look forward to some rest and recreation,
even though the overtime pay has been sweet.
"We're in tax brackets we've never seen before,"
said Richard Seigler, foreman on the crew rebuilding the road.
"We're making a lot, but we're paying a lot of income
tax."
Freeman said the roads will be better than ever.
"These sections of road are going to be built to current
standards, with new paving and complete draining systems so
future slides are much less likely to happen," he said.
This article originally appeared in the Ventura County
Star on April 29, 2005. Reprinted from venturacountystar.com
with express permission.
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