His Caltrans Truck Oozily Fulfills Childhood Dream

Bill Gunn spent his childhood in Sapulpa, Okla., preparing for his future career.

Like many other boys, he dreamed of driving a truck. And he loved to play in water--”any water, lakes, streams, dams.”

Inevitably, he encountered mud. He liked that too.

Now, at 33, he has a wonderful time after each round of Malibu storms.

Gunn spent 12 hours of each of the last three days on Pacific Coast Highway, piloting an orange Caltrans truck through the slick, soupy slime that the latest rains delivered from the hillsides onto the road.

Over and over again, he focused a plow, attached to the front of his dump truck, on a portion of ooze-covered road. He reached for the closest of three levers on the floor to his right, pulling up to lift the plow, pushing down to lower it. Then he reached for the middle lever, pulling to swing the plow to the left, pushing to rotate it to the right.

After 10 or 15 passes, the target piece of street would be scraped. The mud would be piled on the shoulder. And Gunn, a burly, bearded man, would be smiling.

“It’s a little bit exciting,” he said.

200 Truckloads of Ooze Moved

Gunn was part of a Caltrans effort that moved about 2,000 cubic yards--200 truckloads--of mud off the Malibu streets during the weekend. Most of that came off Pacific Coast Highway, which was closed between Topanga Canyon and Las Flores Canyon to all but residents and cleanup crews starting at 9:30 p.m. Friday. Caltrans expects to reopen the highway to all traffic by this evening, said Leonard Thompson, the department’s supervisor for the coastline from Orange to Ventura counties.

But the crews may be working over the same territory again soon.

The National Weather Service predicts a slight chance of showers or drizzle today and Tuesday, with a chance of new rains in Southern California by Wednesday.

Thompson of Caltrans said he isn’t worried that the new rains will bring major damage.

“If we get a break until Wednesday, we should be well prepared for it by then,” he said. “The drains will be open and the catch basins will be clean.”

Gunn, however, was not thinking ahead Sunday, near the finish of what is normally his weekend.

‘I Think It’ll Be Fun’

“If it rains again, yeah, I think it’ll be fun,” he said.

But he was preoccupied with the present scraping and pushing and shoveling, “looking for that drain, trying to keep roads clear, hoping that nobody will get hurt, including me,” he said. “You’d be surprised how fast the 12 hours go.”

He had gotten soaked Friday and Saturday, when the driving downpour rendered his windshield useless, despite wipers, and he had to get out of the truck to move rocks off blocked drains by hand.

“I was up to my knees in mud,” he said.

On Sunday, Gunn was more comfortable. The sun was shining, albeit feebly, and he could plow in peace.

By 10:30 a.m., he had already spent two hours clearing what he calls the Mother’s Day Slide, west of Tuna Canyon Road and east of Pena Creek. Originally, mud and rock showered on the side of the road on that holiday, but the rains had pushed the debris back into the street.

Next, he was headed for Tuna Canyon, for a slide that covered two lanes of the road Friday night.

But first some residents along the 19200 block of Pacific Coast Highway flagged him down.

‘We Could Use Some Help Here’

“We could use some help here,” said Rob McLeod, who was trying to push ooze off his driveway with his “Malibu Sludge Mover,” an L-shaped piece of plywood.

McLeod was having as good a time as Gunn was. After six years in Malibu, he knew that slides always follow rain.

“This is a party,” he said.

Next door, Claudia LaCava was snapping photographs as she and her mud-encrusted friends, Steve Spina and Misty Jobe, used a hose and a broom to push the mire away from the front of their house.

“We’re just playing,” Spina said.

And LaCava chimed in: “This is much better than shoveling snow would be. It’s not cold. It’s really nice. We challenged our neighbors to a mud fight later.”

It was a good thing they felt that way.

After Gunn gave each driveway three swipes with the plow, he backed the truck away and waved cheerfully. Then he drove east, spraying the stuff he had just scraped away and splattering the whole group, head to toe.