No Improvements in Sight for Many Flood-Prone Roads

Beset by the repeated scenario of flooding and mudslides on more than a dozen major streets, Orange County transportation officials are trying to figure out what they can do to keep roads open and ease motorists’ frustration in future storms.

Their quick answer Thursday was: not much.

Because of finances, environmental obstacles and local terrain, officials say they are largely resigned to the fact that heavy rains will inevitably bring repeated closures for some coastal and canyon trouble spots.

“It’s something we’re always going to have to live with to a degree,” said Bill Reiter, manager of public works for Orange County. “There’s just not enough money in the world to correct all the problems.”

Beyond filling thousands of potholes that contributed to an estimated $40 million in storm damage countywide, some cities are considering improvements to their drainage systems and flood control innovations as longer term solutions to the perennial problems.

Last weekend’s storms prompted the closure of flooded city, county and state roads from the canyons of the eastern corridor to the coast, causing headaches for drivers and shutting down some businesses. Some stretches, such as Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach, remained shut Thursday.

But despite the closures, “we feel we did quite well,” said Steve Saville, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, which had to close parts of Laguna Canyon Road, Carbon Canyon Road and several other major thoroughfares under its jurisdiction.

“We can usually count on a closure or two during the rainy season, and we feel we were better prepared this time,” he said, adding that Caltrans employees used mobile pumps, an 800 telephone number to give out information on street conditions and other measures to help ease driving during the storm.

“It’s a major inconvenience,” he acknowledged, “but whenever Caltrans considers a road to be a safety hazard, we’ll close it down.”

The stretch of Pacific Coast Highway between Golden West Street and Warner Avenue in Huntington Beach, just five feet above sea level and notorious for flooding, lived up to its reputation during the recent rains, closing down on Saturday because of the rush of water.

No one seems sure how often the coastal strip has had problems historically, but Huntington Beach Public Works Director Louis F. Sandoval said simply, “It always floods.” The combination of heavy rains and high tides in recent days virtually ensured flooding, he said.

In the long run, he said, the city is considering a $140-million capital project that would add new storm drains and modernize existing equipment in an attempt to reduce the street flooding problem. Financing the project could always be a problem, he said.

Environmentalists offer a different solution: building an inlet from the coast that would bring tidal water to restored Bolsa Chica wetlands and, at the same time, allow an escape route for flood waters from Pacific Coast Highway.

“It’s something’s that’s drastically needed, and this (storm) just proves the point that this is an area that could be improved,” said Adrianne Morrison, executive director of the Amigos de Bolsa Chica in Huntington Beach. “It’s such an obvious solution. But we’ll probably have to endure this (flooding) for a while.”

While environmental measures may offer one answer to street flooding problems in Huntington Beach, transportation officials say they pose obstacles elsewhere.

Saville of Caltrans said that digging irrigation ditches and other such measures might offer a practical solution to street flooding problems around Orange County, but potential opposition from environmental groups stands in the way.

“Just about everything we do there’s an environmental concern. It’s just become a way of doing business,” he said.

Reiter, of the county’s public works department, said the recent storms meant unusually heavy problems with flooding and mudslides for the rural canyon roads over which the county government has jurisdiction. The county ended up closing Silverado Canyon Road, Trabuco Canyon Road and several other rural highways that serve as key arterials from the canyons to the coastland.

“We were getting to the point where you couldn’t even call them mudslides any more. It was just water with brown stuff in it,” he said. “That doesn’t happen every rainfall. It happened this year because of 16 days of rainfall (this month) and the over-saturation of the ground.”

In severe cases, the county has opted to overhaul roads to cut down on flooding. About seven years ago, for instance, the county shored up a 150-foot stretch of Silverado Canyon Road that was prone to near-daily rock slides.

The county bought surrounding property, dug an eight-foot-deep pit, and installed support rails and fencing against the precarious canyon wall, Reiter said.

But for most county roads hit by frequent flooding or slides, the idea of putting in supports or paring back canyon slopes is simply too expensive, Reiter said. Shoring up a single road, he said, could cost “millions and millions” of dollars--money that the county can scarcely afford.