The Cuesta Situation

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http://www.oocities.org/SoHo/7956/cuesta.html

Updated March. 1, 1998
Lots of graphics following - be patient if you are on a simple modem!

In the neighborhood of Cuesta, in La Honda, there are a few tense situations -- believe me. Scenic Drive has recently become disaster scenery. What started as a three-inch speed bump (I drove over it Feb. 10) went to six inches in 24 hours. Around the fourth day, Scenic was closed. After 12 days, the speed bump had become a four-foot dropoff. The saturated ground is moving, and tearing houses apart. The asphalt is creeping around on top of the soil like our local banana slugs. To date, something like nine houses are seriously affected.

I spoke to the USGS team that toured the area, and seen their maps of the active escarpments. The county is putting wells in to de-water the area, there's plastic sheeting everywhere -- and more ground movement every day.

Click on any of the images below to see a double-sized version.

Feb. 22. Corner of Scenic and Cuesta Real. Note the buckled telephone pole, right next to the new one recently put up. I've seen lots of telephone poles get replaced this month.

The white line you see snaking around in these photos is flexible, fire engine-type hose. It's the new water main in this part of town. The existing lines burst in several places because of earth movement. Normally buried along the road, there are lots of spots where you can now see water supply pipes sticking out of the ground, bent.

Feb. 22. Scenic has a four-foot elevation change in it now. Needless to say, the road has been closed for almost two weeks (today is Feb. 24), but you can still walk through.

Feb. 22. In this view, asphalt patching has been put in to allow local and emergency vehicle access. Folks are packing up their stuff and moving out.

Feb. 22. The road is cracked in lots of places, with smaller fissures opening up everywhere. The deck on the house in this photo has partially collapsed (easier to see if you click on the picture to get the larger version).

Feb. 22. Evacuated. Boarded up. With a red tag on it from the county building department.

Related links:

Visible Satellite View of the San Francisco Bay area.

Visible Satellite View of Northern California.

Doppler Radar image of the San Francisco Bay area; shows current precipitation intensities. Interesting to view during a storm (while the power is still on!)

You are Scenic Drive visitor since Feb. 23, 1998, when this page was created.

Mud-slogging photography by

Bill Underwood

This page was created on 23/FEB/98
Updated 1/MARCH/98

Back to:

Bill's Flood '98 Page

	Feb. 22. Corner of Scenic and Cuesta Real. Note the buckled telephone pole, right next to the new one recently put up. I've seen lots of telephone poles get replaced this month. The white line you see snaking around in these photos is flexible, fire engine-type hose. It's the new water main in this part of town. The existing lines burst in several places because of earth movement. Normally buried along the road, there are lots of spots where you can now see water supply pipes sticking out of the ground, bent.
	Feb. 22. Scenic has a four-foot elevation change in it now. Needless to say, the road has been closed for almost two weeks (today is Feb. 24), but you can still walk through.
	Feb. 22. In this view, asphalt patching has been put in to allow local and emergency vehicle access. Folks are packing up their stuff and moving out.
	Feb. 22. The road is cracked in lots of places, with smaller fissures opening up everywhere. The deck on the house in this photo has partially collapsed (easier to see if you click on the picture to get the larger version).
	Feb. 22. Evacuated. Boarded up. With a red tag on it from the county building department.