[UPDATE 5:46 p.m.: Open!] Alderpoint Road Closed Due to Trench Failure, Expected to Reopen by 6 p.m.
Alderpoint Road was closed at mile marker 7.58 p.m. due to a trench failure near the third signal up from Garberville earlier this evening. Kevin Church, an engineer with Ghirardelli and Associates and the husband of this reporter, stated that crews are currently working to fill in the trench and ensure the road is safe for traffic.
Church confirmed that the road is expected to reopen before 6 p.m. today. Motorists are advised to avoid the area until repairs are complete.
(Also note that he is in big trouble for not calling and telling me himself! Imagine my embarrassment at having to learn this from someone else.)
UPDATE 5:46 p.m.: Good news! Mr. Church informed us that the road reopened five minutes ago.
Join the discussion! For rules visit: https://kymkemp.com/commenting-rules
Comments system how-to: https://wpdiscuz.com/community/postid/10599/
??☺❤
Praise the Lord, Mr. Church. Now I can go get some Ghirardelli chocolate for my associates.
No fair!
It’s okay, Kym. I’m nit happy with your husband or his crews either.
Heading home Tuesday at the second traffic light at Lower Sawmill, the traffic control let vehicles downhill through the work zone FOUR times but held the uphill traffic at a stop for 14.5 minutes (I set a stopwatch.) Ridiculous.
I’m tired of waiting at the light too, I had to wait quite a while the other day while a lot of downhill traffic came. But I keep telling myself this traffic is only temporary and that I’m really glad it’s actually being fixed and I’m thankful for the people doing it. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen close calls and accidents in that pinch point over the years. One time I had to wait a lot longer than 14 1/2 minutes when two trucks pulling trailers going opposite directions collided and got locked together right there.
It’s unfortunate how most folks nowadays are oblivious to how their actions affect other people. Inattentive idiots driving trucks and trailers way too fast.
Do you think they had a vendetta against the uphill traffic? Or…maybe something required this?
I am a lover of the devil’s advocate. My head was aswirl with the numerous possibilities of why, in a one-way controlled zone, it was acceptable for traffic coming one direction, over and over again, but traffic coming from the opposite direction taking the exact same course of travel wasn’t allowed to proceed in a timely manner.
Do you have any guesses?
I usually keep a book in the car, as well as food and water. I wasn’t hurting. But there is no logic to be found in the course of events. I have no problem waiting 5 minutes or so. I have no problem driving slow and being able to stop at a moment’s notice. I have worked many times on our public roads, with and without traffic control, as the situations determined. I want for everyone to be able to do their jobs and go home safely afterward.
But 14+ minutes with downhill traffic being allowed through 4 separste times while uphill traffic sits is maddening.
I can imagine. I’m an impatient driver (sadly…it’s not something I’m proud of). I’d have been losing my mind.
I don’t have any guesses but I also know that isn’t the plan so there likely would have been something that required it.
I can’t imagine that a flagger would willingly aggravate people for fun. They have to put up with everything from flying middle fingers to death threats just in the course of their regular job.
“I can’t imagine that a flagger…..They have to put up with everything from flying middle fingers to death threats just in the course of their regular job.”
We’ve certainly had our share of those folks when we’ve had to stop traffic. It’s good to let those folks know you’ve taken down their license plate and won’t hesitate to call CHP if their conduct doesn’t improve upon future encounters. Rarely has CHP had to be called.
I’ve had people tell me this is their road and they don’t have to stop for anyone. I’ve been threatened, cursed at. We had several people straight up try to go around our flaggers with stop signs on last year’s project, only to find the road blocked, hence the stop sign.
I get it. Again though, the circumstances on Tuesday were ridiculous.
One flagger weeks ago at the Upper Sawmill end was actually walking to the vehicles to inform the drivers the estimated wait time. Those kinds of courtesies go a long ways with the right drivers.
I agree–a flagger who offers information to at least the first couple of drivers (which usually then trickles back from driver to driver) goes a long way towards making people more understanding and less impatient. And also makes themselves more human to the drivers and less likely to be the target of hostility.
I always just go to RHBB, but one of the downhill one stop zoned at the top of the hill, is in a dead zone, so it doesn’t work there…?♂️?
Not a vendetta, just lack of consideration maybe…
Maybe something did require this, but that would be a good question for you to ask your husband, maybe…
I think it had nothing to do with a problem in the work zone that would occur by letting the uphill traffic pass through it…
It’s probably, or more likely simply a numbers game…
If there were just a few vehicles trying to pass uphill, then they might be forced to wait the full fifteen minute maximum…
But if, say, 25 or more stopped downhill vehicles accumulate, there may be a requirement to let them pass, even if it happens more than once in the fifteen minutes that the few uphill vehicles had to wait…
Maybe the maximum wait time has something to do with sheer volume of traffic in either direction ???
Downhill traffic might also be allowed to pass once it is tightly backed up beyond the first uphill intersection, due to it impeding ingress onto Upper Sawmill Road and Mann Road. (Or is it “Maan” Road…???), or if their are loaded logging trucks or other commercial vehicles…
Having to go through all three sets of traffic lights, with construction delays, in both directions on a trip to town is extra fun…
It can turn two twenty minute drives into two one hour drives…
I can see how people get frustrated…
I sure do, and I only do it bout once or twice a week…
I’d be tearing what’s left of my hair out, if I had to do it five days a week to get to and from work every day…
Yikes…
I’ll be glad and grateful when it’s all done…
I completely feel sorry for anyone that is charged with fixing that mountain of muck and slime.
I feel sorry for everyone involved considering much of this work could have been avoided had the board of supervisors over the years not pilfered funds from vital infrastructure, while county roads has failed to manage ditches and water runoff on all our roads in the south county which has allowed the roads to be so undermined and impacted.
While I agree there has been neglect, sometimes the mountain just does what it wants. It called an earthflow, though mostly referred to as a landslide.
Another example, only much bigger is the “Arizona Slide”, (though another biggie is the Hooskanaden slides) area of 101 between Brookings and Port Orford. That mass of mountain has been sliding towards the ocean for what seems like forever. Sometimes taking out a couple hundred feet of the highway. If I remember right, there is a layer(s) of slippery clay in the sedimentary layers of the coastal mountains.
What Ernie said about muck and slime reminded me of that. Don’t know the local geology enough to know if there is a similar “clay” level around the Alderpoint Road. Especially if there has been rain, the “clay” part of the sediment acts like it has been greased, so to speak.