A rock slide closed a portion of Highway 1 between San Luis Obispo and Monterey counties overnight.
“Earth moves. Nothing is stable anywhere right now,” said Terri Glover, Orange resident.
Highway 1 is back open after the small slide caused a 12-mile closure Thursday night.
Caltrans says the Big Sur coast is more prone to movement because of how the water saturates the ground.
While parts of the highway are accessible, a nearly seven-mile stretch at Regent’s Slide near Carmel has been closed since February of last year.
“The road, Highway 1, Big Sur is iconic. It’s something that people know about with California and America that they want to see. It being closed is a real bummer,” said Alan Fraser, owner of The Love Story Project store in Cambria.
There’s no set date for when that portion of the road will reopen. Caltrans says, “We have installed advanced monitoring systems at Regent’s Slide and continue to perform excavation work on site as conditions allow.”
“It’s Mother Nature. There isn’t much you can do about that,” Fraser added.
He says he’s noticed a change in visitors due to the highway’s closure.
“It changes the traffic flow for us and who we see in the shop. We used to see a lot of Europeans and people from around the world. They are just not making that journey anymore because Big Sur is closed,” Fraser said.
Glover says it’s been three years since she was able to take Highway 1 from Santa Cruz down to Southern California.
“Last time we drove down, it was like shouldn't we be driving this because in some places, you could see where it was going to slide again,” she said.
Glover says she hopes to see it fully reopened once again.
“When you drive down, you realize how beautiful California is,” she said.
