When will 101 north through Santa Barbara re-open? No one knows

[catzies]

http://www.venturacountystar.com/vcs/news/article/0,1375,VCS_121_3462222,00.html (registration required or use bugmenot)

Highway 101 between Santa Barbara and Ventura will remain closed indefinitely, said Marta Bortner, Caltrans spokeswoman based in San Luis Obispo.

She said there is no way to know when the 101 will re-open. The road is still covered with liquid mud from two separate slides Monday morning north of La Conchita. The slides trapped cars and trucks in up to four feet of muck.

Crews are trying to clear the road, but the mud is hard to remove, Bortner said. It can't be shoveled, and has to be pushed back toward the landslide.


*sigh* Can't go to work until they open the 101.

[realFedUp]

1. and hoping the grapevine doesn't close again due to snow

Hard to believe a big state depends on two main
highways north and south...

[catzies]

2. But when the Grapevine closes they usually re-open it pretty quickly

The snowplows just push the snow off the road. They're saying that can't do that with the mud. It can't be shoveled, and has to be pushed back toward the landslide.

All we know is not today, not tomorrow. x(

[medeak]

3. Caltrans sucks!

Visited there in December and stranded for days just outside of Santa Barbara..

Never have I seen a state so ridiculously incapacitated by weather.

[catzies]

4. That's true. You'd think California was made of sugar since it melts

with just a little bit of water! :D

[Beaverhausen]

10. well come on- it wasn't just a little bit of water

we broke 100 plus year old records.

and yes...I'm still dealing with leaks and dripping. But at least my home is still standing.

[JunkYardDogg]

13. Go to Oregon

Those wankers can't even scrape ice off of I-5 thru Portland

[idiosyncratic]

5. A guy on rescue in La Conchita said mud was like "snot." Eeeuuueew!

Now that is a picture I didn't need in my mind, but it does explain why they cannot get the road cleared until things dry out.

[catzies]

6. There are actually three separate mudslides in la Conchita.

The first two are a tiny bit north of that "town," and they were the ones that closed the freeway. It's literally a sea of mud right up to the ocean.

The third and fatal one is where the houses butt up against the hillside away from the freeway.

So even if the first two 'slides didn't actually shut the freeway down, the search-and-rescue effort might have.

But it's still not a tsunami. Counting blessings.

[catzies]

7. FRIDAY. The freeway's closed until FRIDAY.

AAAAAAAaaaaaaack.

[CrispyQ]

8. Insurance question

If your house & land are part of the mudslide & neither no longer exist, does the insurance company compensate you for this? I assume you have to have special insurance, but what do they do? Estimate the worth of your house & land & pay you?

[idiosyncratic]

9. I would be surprised if those people were able to get insurance

Since that hill collapsed almost ten years ago, and since the people refused to move, they might not have been able to get insurance.

Sort of like the people who live in the fire-prone chapparel areas. Some people either can't get, or can't afford, insurance because of the risk.

The man I feel sorry for is the one who just moved there four weeks ago. I wonder if he knew of the risk?

In Idaho where I used to live, they rate the avalanche danger and only owners can reside in houses on certain lots. They are not supposed to rent those places. I don't know if they are able to get insurance, or how much it might cost . . .

[Xithras]

11. Yes and no

A standard homeowners policy NEVER has to pay out for a landslide or a mudslide because it's considered an "Act of God" type disaster.

If you have a flood insurance policy (required in many areas), the Federal Flood Insurance program will pay out to rebuild after a mudslide. Since mudslides are driven by water, they legally looked upon as floods. If a homeowner has no flood insurance, they get nothing.

Just to make this trickier, if a house is lost in a LANDslide, then the flood insurance DOESN'T cover the losses. Unless the homeowner has a special landslide policy, which is only offered by a couple of insurers at thousands of dollars per year...on TOP of your regular homeowners insurance bill, then there will be no payout from either insurance companies or the government. Very, very few people have these policies in California (pretty much just the big hilltop mansions). If the cliff under your home gives out and your entire property vanishes into the ocean, not only do you lose everything, but you'll get no compensation AND you may still get stuck owing the mortgage!

[CrispyQ]

12. What a racket! Thanks for the explanation.

Not sure I would take a chance on a hillside mansion. Of course, on my salary it's not an issue.

Thanks again.

[JunkYardDogg]

14. They are using the Hiway for Equipment Staging

See the Front page photo of the Ventura County Star on Tuesday

[catzies]

15. Yeah, I know. That's my local paper.

Belated welcome to DU! :hi: