7,800 tons of mud shut down Interstate 5 for one full day. 
What will happen this winter?

It was already too late for thousands of people when urgent warnings were sent out by Kern County’s flash flood alert system Thursday, Oct. 15 at about 3:15 p.m.

The alerts were received throughout the mountains, but the sky had already begun to open over the hills of Tejon Ranch by about 2:40 p.m. Electricity went out in parts of Lebec.

A deluge of rain and hail hit the dry soil of the steep hillsides above Interstate 5. The storm was strong enough to send 7,800 tons of mud and debris across the freeway in two…(please see below to view full stories and photographs)

Photo captions:

The morning after mudslides shut down Interstate 5 for 24 hours, Caltrans engineers assessed slopes for more public safety hazards.

Rivulets beginning on the hilltops became torrents of mud at the bottom where they were dumped onto the freeway.

Above: A drain pipe intended for water runoff is dwarfed by the massive amounts of mud and debris that cascaded onto the freeway, making engineers’ drainage plans appear puny in contrast to the hazard posed by soil dried by drought, suddenly pummeled by a tropical storm cell. Below: Vehicles caught on I-5 on October 15 during the cloudburst.

Above: Scenes of cars and trucks engulfed in mud were mixed with human stories of escaping the chaos. This little family was caught in the Lake Elizabeth mudslide that occurred at the same time as the slide on I-5. They were helped by an L.A. County helicopter that took them to safety.

Employees from Plains West Coast Pipeline LLC came to view the 1-5 slide area to see if their oil pipelines that cross Tejon Ranch near the freeway had ruptured.

Northbound traffic (shown here heading toward Fort Tejon) was stopped abruptly at 3:06 p.m. when CHP called for closure of both north and south lanes. Drivers were calling frantically for information.

While slides were blocking I-5, alternate routes such as Highway 58 and Lake Elizabeth Road were also flooded.

Jeff Zimmerman of Neenach sent photos and a report from Elizabeth Lake Road, at the same time I-5 was being hammered to the northwest. Right: Meanwhile, over on State Route 58, things were even worse. That alternate route was also closed down, along with Highway166 near Maricopa, sealing off all routes.

Photos provided by the Kern County Sheriff’s Office show mudslide destruction on Highway 58.

Caltrans crews worked through the night and all Friday to get the lanes of Interstate 5 open. Northbound lanes were open by 1:30 p.m. and southbound was opened at about 4:15 p.m.

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This is part of the October 23, 2015 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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