Section of PCH Finally Will Reopen : Transit: Two years after a landslide covered it, cars will again drive on link between Dana Point and San Clemente.

More than two years after a landslide dumped 44,000 tons of dirt and debris, workers have finally cleared a section of Pacific Coast Highway in Dana Point and the thoroughfare will reopen today.

“Everything’s a go,” Morton August, the city’s director of public works and engineering, said Tuesday. “I’ve told the crews that at 11 a.m., people are going to be driving down the highway, so they better get out of the way.”

The one-mile stretch of the highway connecting San Clemente and Dana Point has been impassable since February, 1993, when a bluff collapsed during heavy rains, destroying four homes and dislodging the dirt and debris.

A $3.3-million project over the past eight months has cleared the highway and made the hillside stable. Crews will remain on the job site for a few more weeks, putting finishing touches on decorative rock and other parts of the hillside restoration project, August said.

Today’s reopening of Pacific Coast Highway ends a long wait for motorists and merchants who depended on the coastal artery for commutes and customers and were greatly inconvenienced by the closure.

The section of highway carried 12,000 to 15,000 vehicles a day before it was shut down.

For businesses financially hurt by the closure, the reopening is welcomed with a mix of relief and resignation.

Robert Lee, a manager at Ichibiri Japanese Steak House in San Clemente, said business there dropped 10% to 15% because traffic, including vehicles full of tourists, has been diverted.

“It’s wonderful, but I would say that it has taken too long,” Lee said of the reopening.

For Richard Vaughn, a resident on La Ventana who lost his home in the massive landslide, today will mark the groundbreaking for a replacement home.

“Two years, one month and two weeks later, we’re going to get started,” Vaughn said.

He said he will be the first of those whose homes were destroyed to begin building anew, adding that his wait to get started had been a “little bit of hell.”

Since being uprooted by the slide, Vaughn has been living in a rented house. He said a new house should take about seven months to build.

Last July, when city officials from Dana Point and San Clemente announced that the project to shore up the bluff and clear the highway was to begin, they said the effort would be completed by January.

But rains and other problems delayed the project, August said.

Finally, the day is here.

August said that detour signs are being replaced with signs alerting motorists to the reopening. The signs will remain for about three months.

The project was funded by the Federal Highway Administration, the state Office of Emergency Safety and a contribution from homeowners on La Ventana, August said.

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Coast Is Clear Project cost: $3.3 million Funding: Federal Highway Administration, state Office of Emergency Safety and homeowners on La Ventana, a street above the highway. Length of project: Eight months. Length of closure: 25 months.