‘Road Disappearing All Over the Place’

UPDATE 9:32 from Southern Humboldt’s Marty Messenger on SoHum Awareness:

Briceland Thorn Road is passable (but flooded) at the Whittemore Grove bridge.
Camp Kimtu Road is closed – the river is over the road.

County Roads are keeping the Redway/Garberville bluffs clear, but it’s muddy there.
They are finishing up a slide on Sprowel Creek Rd.

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UPDATE 7:40 A.M.:

PG&E:From San Jose to Eureka and across into Central Valley, the outage map looks like a sea of children’s colorful balloons. Tens of thousands are without electricity this morning.

The Leggett area has a large outage, as does the Garberville area, the Ferndale area, and the Eureka area. But there are scattered outages up and down Humboldt.

Roads: See more here.

Flooding roads at Freshwater Rd./Greenwood Hts., State Rte. 254 near Holmes Flat Rd., and on Hwy 36 near post marker 600.

Hwy 162 near Dos Rios has been closed.

There is a slide blocking one lane of Hwy 101 south of Garberville.

There is a slide on Dean Creek Rd. north of Redway.

There are more road issues.  I’ll be trying to contact County roads for more specific information.

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Here’s a thank you to our PG&E crews, our CHP, our county and Caltrans workers who are outside with trucks, cones, chainsaws, and shovels while the rest of us are home by the fire.

Tired voices on the scanner underscore the severity of the storm.  Marty Messenger from Humboldt Co. Roads exchanges reports about the conditions of the roads with other transportation workers. 

It sounds like a disaster out there–Flooding near Whitmore Grove, tree down at Bull Creek, slide on Redwood Drive near Evergreen Rd.  The CHP site is full of reports, too many and too conflicting to be sorted out completely.  The last words before switching scanner channels comes in a response to a question from Messenger about the conditions of the area near the other man.  The tired transportation worker  says quietly, “Road disappearing all over the place.” Other reports echo his statement.

Stay home if you can.  Be careful if you must go out.

Below is what I can tell you:

PG&E: There are thousands out of power from the Bay Area north.  In particular there is a large cluster out near Laytonville, probably at least a thousand.  The electricity went out a little after midnight in some areas, and then more customers lost power after 1 A.M. and there is no estimated time of restoration nor cause given.

Loleta also has a large number of customers out of power.  They lost electricity a little after midnight. Again no time of restoration nor cause given.

There are scattered smaller outages throughout the area. Check here for more information.

ROADS: A tree has fallen across the south bound Hwy 101 by the 12th Street exit.  Crews are trying to clear it. Traffic is being rerouted through Fortuna I believe but details are sketchy.  It appears they are being diverted off at the 12th Street exit.

Briceland Thorn Rd. is flooded

There appears to be a slide on Redwood Dr. I’m trying to get more info. but have lost scanner contact.

Vehicle accident near Fernbridge. Keep abreast of the lastest CHP reports here.

Please update your neighbors with information in the comment section if you have any knowledge.