Levee systems, dozens of roads and bridges damaged across SLO County 

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• PHOTO BY SWETHA SUNDARRAJAN
• FLOATING ON Residents of SLO’s Laguna Lake neighborhood resorted to row boats for transportation after the Jan. 9 storm flooded its streets.

Levee breaches in Arroyo Grande and Los Osos might have been the most significant infrastructural failures of the Jan. 9 storm, but they certainly weren’t the only ones.

Dozens of SLO County roads and bridges were also damaged in the drenching, and as of Jan. 11, about 50 roads countywide remained closed. A map of closures is available at readyslo.org.

More than 100 residents remained stranded on their properties as of Jan. 11 due to impassable road conditions, according to officials.

Road damage ranged from washed out cement, to blocked culverts causing heavy water and debris flows, to downed trees. Four to five county bridges are also severely damaged.

“It is extensive throughout the county,” said Wade Horton, the county’s chief administrative officer. “There are individuals and families that landlocked … [and] they can’t get out. We’re trying to identify those locations.”

One of those areas is along Chimney Rock Road west of Paso Robles. Paula McCambridge, a spokesperson for the SLO County Public Works Department, explained that Chimney Rock is closed due to the unstable soil beneath it—which makes it appear deceptively safe to drive on.

“The road looks good on the surface, but the ground around the culvert is failing, so those roads could collapse at any time,” McCambridge said.

Officials are imploring residents to obey the road closures and allow emergency crews to respond.

“Trust the signage. Don’t take any chances,” she said.

County crews are triaging the infrastructure damage, prioritizing the broken roads that are isolating residents and inspecting the levee break that caused massive flooding at the Arroyo Grande Creek.

“We’re in a constant state of responding,” McCambridge said. “We have about 60 people on our road crews, on three different teams. Our goal is to get everything done as quickly as possible. We’re already in contact with contractors.”

Horton said that the county could partner with state and federal authorities in the coming days to help evacuate stranded residents and/or deliver goods and services to them. He also said that state and federal relief funding will likely help with the cost of infrastructure repairs.

“That’s why we proclaimed a local emergency,” Horton said. “It allows us to take advantage of federal funding and assistance … to help offset some of the costs that it’s going to take to put our county back together.”

While the Arroyo Grande Creek levee suffered a break on Jan. 9, that system and many others in the county had only so much capacity to handle stormwater, anyway, officials said.

In the city of SLO, the San Luis Creek overflowed its banks at the Marsh Street bridge and flooded a large area. Laguna Lake in SLO also spilled over, causing widepsread property damage to homes.

Those incidents did not happen as a result of an infrastructure failure—“just the amount of rain we got was too much for our creek to handle,” according to SLO City Public Communications Manager Whitney Szentesi.

“That’s why you saw flooding in that area and all around the city,” Szentesi said. “Think of it as a sink: We try to keep the drain and basin clear and clean, but when the water flowing from the faucet outpaces the capacity of that drain and basin, the sink will overflow. That’s essentially what happened on Monday.” ∆

OTHER LOCAL STORM COVERAGE

Community bands together amid evacuations

County scrambles to provide shelter while tragedies hit

Residents face flood- and mud-damaged homes and businesses

Devastation: Residents are grappling with the aftermath of the deluge that battered SLO County Jan. 9 and 10