MONTEREY — Highway 1 along the southern Big Sur Coast will remain closed until further notice after the roadway at Rat Creek slid into the Pacific Ocean, as damage from the week’s atmospheric river continues to mount.

Kevin Drabinski, a Caltrans spokesperson, said that the agency had become aware that a “slip out” occurred on Highway 1 at Rat Creek in Monterey County 30.2 miles from the San Luis Obispo County border on Thursday.

The location is south of Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park near Big Creek Bridge in the area that has been closed between Ragged Point in San Luis Obispo County and south of Deetjen’s Big Sur Inn in Monterey County, a span of about 45 miles. Big Sur Village remains open and accessible to those heading south from Carmel.

“A thing like that doesn’t happen all of a sudden,” said Drabinski. “The hillside above the location is in the area impacted by the Dolan Fire burn scar.”

The Dolan Fire started Aug. 18 on the Monterey Ranger District of the Los Padres National Forest and burned 124,924 acres.

“A debris flow came down the hill and it overwhelmed the culvert there at the location,” said Drabinski.

Water, debris and mud accumulated at that point, forcing the flow to cascade over the roadway, which eventually began to erode the surface back toward the hillside.

A portion of Highway 1 along the Big Sur Coast below the Dolan Fire burn scar has collapsed as a debris flow compromised a culvert causing water, mud, and debris to wash over the roadway, eroding the surfacing backward towards the hillside. Crews were out on Friday, determining the extent of the damage. (Heath Johnston – Caltrans) 

Drabinski said that at first light Friday morning an assessment team and contractor crews were on the scene gauging the damage. That report is expected to be available by late Friday afternoon.

The Rat Creek slip out is about 21 miles north of the Mud Creek slide that spilled about 6 million cubic yards of rock and debris atop Highway 1 in May 2017. It took Caltrans more than a year and $54 million to rebuild the roadway atop the slide. The Mud Creek area is within the current closure area of Highway 1 along the Big Sur Coast.

The slip out is only one of the damaged areas caused by this week’s torrential downpours of the atmospheric river that drenched the parched and burned California landscape.

On Thursday morning, the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office issue an evacuation order for the Carmel River Lagoon area, including all roads south of Santa Lucia Avenue and Mission Fields. The order was lifted Thursday afternoon.

Tim Ruwe’s father-in-law, Robert Young, owns a house in the affected area. The Orange County resident said he and his family had been on a Zoom call on Wednesday, and in the course of the conversation had understood the sand berm at the Carmel Lagoon had been breached. Young, who is in his 80s, saw floodwaters overtake his property in the past.

“It was a relief that we didn’t have to worry about flooding,” said Ruwe.

But on Thursday morning, security cameras in and around the house showed water, which had come over the sandbags that were protecting the property, encroaching the premises. Ruwe knew that if the Carmel Lagoon had been breached, there should not have been water inside the house.

On Thursday afternoon, Monterey County Administrator Charles McKee posted a notice addressing sandbar management.

Crews constructed a pilot channel 20-feet wide, 190 feet long and averaging two-and-a-half feet deep on Tuesday in anticipation of heavy water flow from the incoming atmospheric river.

In accordance with local, state and federal permits, Monterey County is not permitted to manually breach the sandbar between the Carmel Lagoon and the ocean so a sand plug was left to allow the lagoon to breach naturally. The county notice said it cannot take action until anticipated water flow at the Carmel River Robles del Rio gauge is forecast to rise above 200 cubic feet per second.

Due to heavy waves and high tide, the sandbar was “slightly rebuilt” at the southern end of the pilot channel Wednesday night. High tide, large waves and high water flow from the Carmel River on Thursday morning did not allow the lagoon to empty fast enough to keep pace.

Structures along the perimeter of the lagoon experienced varying levels of flooding despite monitoring by Public Works crews, who used pumps to remove water, that were on-site overnight.

“Thursday morning at approximately 9 a.m., the outflow of the lagoon increased and lagoon elevation began to drop more rapidly,” the county said in its notice. “The lagoon naturally ‘breached’ as per the conditions of these various permits, and flooding began to recede. The lagoon water elevation will continue to be monitored through the storm events.”

But that proved too late for Young’s property.

“Once we saw that there was water in the house, we packed up and came up here,” said Ruwe whose father-in-law also lives in Orange County. “My brother-in-law arrived from Oregon to help clean up.”

While the group waits for an insurance assessor to come out, they are working on what they can to dry out everything that is floor level up to about six inches such as furniture, cabinet contents, and drywall, with Ruwe worrying that mold may become a problem.

“We can do minor stuff,” said Ruwe.

Krissie Salmoun said she was told to evacuate, so she packed up and stayed at the ready if she, her husband, and their three kids thought it was time to leave.

“We took the risk as the rain was dying down,” said Salmoun.

Her sister has a house down the street and her husband grew up in the area, so they felt the situation could be monitored as they had been through previous flooding in the area.

“I knew the issue at the lagoon and thought the city and county would be on top of it,” said Salmoun.

Everybody did the best job they could, she said, adding, it’s just one more issue for people to get through.

Stacy Meheen lives in the Mission Fields area and was given the evacuation order from Monterey County sheriff’s deputies. She said that fortunately the flooding did not get that far. “We were packed and prepared but within hours, we were told we could go home.”

According to the National Weather Service, over a 72-hour period, the atmospheric river dumped 3.07 inches of rain in Salinas, 3.46 inches in Monterey, and anywhere between 9 and 16 inches in the Santa Lucia Range above Big Sur.

Since the beginning of the rain season starting Oct. 1, Salinas has received 4.37 inches of rain bringing it to 70% of normal, while Monterey has had 5.41 inches or 67% of normal.

A week ago, Salinas stood at 17% of normal and Monterey at 18%.

The weekend forecast calls for partly sunny skies with the chance of rain coming back Monday through Wednesday.