[KHTS] – Geologists and public works officials are unsure of Vasquez Canyon Road’s fate as a slow-moving landslide continues to destroy the road.
The landslide in late November sent sections of the pavement as high as fifteen feet in the air, closing the road indefinitely.
“The intention is to rebuild and reopen the road,” said Steven Frasher, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works.The slow-moving landslide that has destroyed, and continues to destroy, part of the road along Vasquez Canyon Road has left geologists and public works officials unclear of the roads future.
As for the cause of the landslide, county officials have no answers.
“Everything is being looked into because nothing is obvious,” Frasher said. “There’s no indication that seismic activity had anything to do with it.”
There have been no freezing of the ground, recent storms, or seismic activity that county geologists are aware of.
“It’s a very high priority for us,” Frasher said, “but it’s also a very complicated one.”
Los Angeles County Office of Public Works officials are also having trouble contacting the owner of the area of the road that is buckling, said Frasher.
Since the land is technically private property, Public Works can not move forward until the owner gives permission, said Frasher.
“We had geologist out there this week, and we will have geologists out there next week as well,” Frasher said. “The geologists say the road is still buckling.”
Frasher said that a potential idea concerning how the landslide occurred is that water from the Oct. 15 storm may have seeped into the ground and weakened the soil, but that there has been no outward indication that the storm caused the landslide, meaning that there is no way of confirming this theory.
Frasher said that there are no easily found reasons for an event like this to happen.
“It’s a bit of a mystery,” he said.
And while the ground is still unstable, there is a limit to what can be done.
“With the road is still moving, there’s a limit to what we can do in terms of road mitigation,” said Frasher. “It would be fruitless and potentially dangerous until the geologic situation stabilizes.”
But according to Frasher, the closure is not something that will be fixed quickly.
A California Highway Patrol officer on the scene remarked that the road closure could be an inconvenience for first responders.
“Unfortunately,” he said, “it’s a really good shortcut for emergency responders.”
Crews from Southern California Edison have shut off the power lines that run along the canyon, and have begun work taking down the wires that stretch between them, as several of the power poles lining the road have been affected by the damage.
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38 Comments
Let it stay closed. As a resident I love the lack of traffic. It has been much nicer.
No need to reopen. It has been awesome here since the road closed.
I live there to. We don’t have to dodge all the cars now.
Nice to meet ya neighbor. What side are you on?
Off of Vasquez Rd and Gaspe Rd back in the hills. It is just like the old days when I built my house there. To many car accidents now.
Oh the Sierra Hwy side. I am on the Bouquet Cyn side. Can see the slide area from the top pf my driveway.
But it’s the best way to get from Agua Dulce to Saugus, and I miss Tellys!!!! Lol
Sorry. But love no traffic backed up past my driveway in the mornings. Nobody racing up the road. The quiet. Telly’s pretty good, worth the extra drive to get there. :)
I understand :) I bet it’s nice not to have people using your road in front of your home as a shortcut anymore.
It really is.
Oh come now can’t you read a maps
What? Yes, I can, and through Vasquez is the quickest way to get to Saugus. I never said I didn’t know another way to get there. Rude
It will be fixed as soon as the ground is stable. Don’t listen to headlines meant to get people to read a boring story.
Mark, this is what I was telling you about. Did you see it??
Yea, still plenty of room to drive across!!! LOL
Hope they rebuild it – need it to get to upper parts of valley w/o going all around
So I live just down the road right on bouquet if something happens where the road going in to the city is blocked then I have no way to get down to the rest of city.
Me too
Make it into hiking trails
Lane we gotta goooo
Scary they shouldn’t built no more!!!!
Its on a fault that’s why….
The ground here is always shifting. Especially going up and over. That slide started making bumps in the road at least a week before it raised the road.
Hey Daisy Aguilar “can I go over Vasquez or is it still closed?”
LMAO
Can they just do what everyone else in SCV does….build around it.
Or be really smart and move? ?
Since the private land destroyed public property why does the government NOW not allowed to conduct tests on the private property to see what destroyed public property . ….the government seems like they can call for eminent domain and be able to figure out if this could spread and cause additional public safety priblems…it is even in the middle of nowhere and just land on the private property is being affected.
The land there is undeveloped, The land owner has done nothing to cause this.But there are certain legal steps that must done. And if they did decide to the eminent domain route, they are required to compensate the land owner.And doing that also requires time. More then likely if the county had not built a road through the mountian it would not have become unstable.
It’s a fault line everything is unstable
Fernando Romo
TiffanyNoël Connelly
Jorge Gutierrez
They need to make a new road in a new place connecting the same places for the same people. Asap!
QK Cortes Correa esto esta ceca de tu casa?
Ya lo habia visto pero pense que era menor el desastre
Chris Haight have you been following this? Look at it now!
That’s crazy