Storms leave road damage around county

He said residents and veterinarians were notified of the department’s predictions the roadway was in danger of washing out.

“Well, my predictions [were] correct,” he said. Kokkas said before the storms, the department asked if it could create a temporary access road on the other side of the property and was told no.

“After the road was destroyed, they changed their mind and sent us a letter yesterday,” he said. “The property owners have built a temporary road to go through their properties and an engineer is coming tomorrow to look at their field to find out what kind of work has to be done in order for us to build a bypass.”

Kokkas said that while researching, staff cannot find record of easements that would allow construction, but the title company was contacted.

“CAL OES and FEMA will only pay for roads that are part of our existing easement,” he said, so there are some issues to work out and I don’t know how we are going to proceed.”

Other roads

Kokkas showed other weather-damaged roads around the county, including two sections of Lower South Fork Road where half of the roadway has been washed out.

“Even though the rains have stopped, the saturated ground may start giving out more and we may not have a road,” he said. “We don’t have a road that’s passable now.”

He said area residents saw evidence the road would give way before and moved vehicles to areas where they would not be trapped, “but that cannot be sustained for a long time.”

Two sections of Ruth Zenia Road have also become impassable in the areas of milepost 6.7 and 7.7. Photos of the area show heavy cracking and failure of the pavement in areas where fire had obviously passed through. Kokkas said there was no way to tell if the roadway is safe to drive past, but a geotechnical engineer was going to examine the area.  

Hyampom Road at milepost 10.3 shows signs of sliding along the shoulder where large cracks have appeared in the dirt bank.

“There is something we have to watch out for because the road may not be able to carry any substantial weight because that weight may induce a slide and make it dangerous,” he said.

Finally, three miles up Canyon Creek, another slide came down on Jan. 14, destroying a drill left in the area.

“Again, this is an unpredictable slide,” he said. “We don’t know how it’s going to act. We can only do so much.” Noting that the county approved a $4 million contract with Dyer Corp. to repair the slide, Kokkas said, “We’re waiting to see what’s going to happen.”