KBUU News: Caltrans Will Not Disclose What Plan It Has To Keep Fire-Destroyed Hillsides Form Falling Onto PCH
Written by 991KBU on January 22, 2025
For the past week… KBUU news has been asking Caltrans officials what their plan is to repair Pacific Coast Highway.
Numerous retaining walls… rock retention walls… erosion prevention walls… cracked or burned.
Hundreds of vertical faces have lost their protective vegetation.
They were visible burning on the live TV news pictures. Thick wooden timbers designed to prevent boulders from smashing down onto the roadway… Vaporized in the fire.
Steel I-beams used to hold them … twisted and warped. Railroad ties and other timbers that were placed decades ago on the steep hillside above Pacific Coast Highway… Just gone.
We could see that from the helicopters.
“We have a plan” says a Caltrans spokesman. The Caltrans public relations staff is tired of hearing from me … politely… but clearly annoyed that a pesky reporter is not accepting their answers.
They say they have a plan.
What is the plan? They cannot say.
With all respect, that is not a plan. Eleven days after the fire, SoCalGas, SCE and LA County Water have trucks all over the road, and repairs are well underway.
Yesterday … we spent two hours on PCH in eastern Malibu .. on foot … in a truck.
Not one Caltrans repair crew was spotted on PCH.
The Caltrans Public affairs people very politely say they have handed the highway to the utility crews, and will let them make repairs before Caltrans gets to work.
OK. Sao what is the plan, once that happens?
Rain is forecast Friday.
Land has already slid onto the road.
Calrans record on this issue is not good. As KBUU reported last year … Caltrans reacted very slowly to a creeping wall of mud that moved ever so slowly onto PCH traffic lanes at Tramonto … at the Castellamare pedestrian bridge near the Getty Museum.
It took Caltrans years to develop a plan for that slowly-creeping mudslide.
Meanwhile … mud eventually ate half the northbound roadway, causing months of traffic misery,
Now, either the state has a plan and is unable to publicly disclose it, or, alternatively, it has no plan.
The Caltrans plan for preventing landslides on PCH … not disclosed.
The Caltrans record on landslides on PCH … not great.
Today … we see TV pictures of sandbags being stockpiled in Altadena for this weekend’s rain.
We didn’t see any sandbags yesterday on PCH.
Not one piece of new concrete retaining walls … K-rails.
Perhaps we were not looking in the right places … but when we asked Caltrans … they could not say if any material had been stockpiled. When we pressed them about storm preparations … we got the answer: we’re on it.
Over at LA County … this morning the flood control peoples said they are stockpiling protective material at Santa Monica … for immediate use in Pacific palisades and Malibu
Mark Estrella … director of the LA Public Works department … at this morning’s news briefing:
PESTRELLA RE SM AIRPORT 70853
“The Santa Monica airport will be the Palisades fire supply staging area for 5000 K rails 350,000 linear feet of compost socks 30,000 linear feet of straw waddle and 25,000 gravel bags. These are all equipment and materials necessary to secure the locations, the term to burn areas from debris flows due to rain and maintain the pollution laid and sediment on sites.”
But that’s for the county’s flood control system, and for private property with erosion problems.
Pestrella said nothing about Pacific Coast Highway… and a county spokesperson later said they need to get clarification on that.
And Pestrella says he expects mud this weekend … in Malibu and Pacific Palisades.
PESTRELLA 222 70854
“We have our first rain event. We expect more rain post this event.
“We plan for annually. We prepare for it year-round.
“Your county district is covering the entire area and preparing that big backbone system.”
But the county’s backbone flood control system does not include state highways.
Again … we’ve repeatedly asked Caltrans … what steps are they taking to keep the road open … once the emergency vehicles clear.
We have a plan they keep saying. What is that plan? They keep not saying..
