LONG WAY DOWN

2,000 Stranded in California After Chunk of Historic Highway 1 Collapses

Highway 1 has been subject to frequent closures, often triggered by heavy rain and landslides, in recent years.

Thousands of motorists were forced to change course on Saturday evening after a big piece of California’s Highway 1 slid into the ocean, shutting down the road as crews worked to stabilize it. It’s unclear what caused the partial collapse near Rocky Creek Bridge in the scenic Big Sur area, but heavy rain swept through the region on Saturday, and the highway is historically prone to landslides. Most of the people affected by the closure were day travelers who scrambled to make last-minute plans on Saturday. Visitors slept in hotels, bed-and-breakfasts, temporary shelters, campgrounds, and in some cases their own cars, a spokesman for Monterey County said. “We came here just to have lunch and go home, and now it’s like everyone is trapped here,” one stranded visitor told The New York Times. “All the little hotels and stuff, you could tell everybody was swarming.” On Sunday, Caltrans organized a few escorted convoys to help motorists around the damaged area. It didn’t say when the highway was expected to reopen.