On April 2, 2006, Highway 1 at Devil's Slide was closed for the third time since 1983, because the landslide it is built on was slipping into the ocean yet again. It was a disaster for the community, turning commutes into hours-long ordeals, hurting businesses on both sides of the closure, and creating an air of uncertainty and mistrust of the authorities whose job it is to repair the highway.

It was also a watershed moment for Coastsider. Literally overnight, our readership quadrupled and we became a household name in the community. One of the things we're proudest of is that when it was impossible to know what was going on out there, we were able to bring photos, video, and news from the side of the mountain. We learned a lot about covering breaking news and doing video, but it would also have been impossible if we had not refined our online production techniques while covering the community for two years when the Slide went out.

We've gathered all of our coverage of the Slide closure on this page, to provide the community with a little perspective and quick reference to the biggest story on the Coastside.

Barry Parr

July 24: Devil's Slide will be a single lane only "as needed" at non-peak hours
July 20: Devil's Slide to reopen August 4
July 9: Letter: Why hasn't anything been done about the evening commute?
May 26: Caltrans seeking consensus, not approval, from HMB on traffic light
May 24: Highway 92 travel times are now online
May 18: Caltrans gives HMB a chance to discuss traffic light
May 16: Caltrans will be at HMB City Council tonight
May 15: Devil's Slide will be open in late September, says Caltrans
May 11: Caltrans plans to announce schedule Tuesday
May 8: Jackie Speier will "shop till she drops" in HMB Tuesday
May 2: Caltrans expects Devil's Slide design and timeline in about two weeks
Apr 27: NY Times discovers Devil's Slide
Apr 26: Caltrans resumes drilling, excavates slipout at Shamrock Ranch
Apr 19: HMB City Council meeting focuses on Slide problems
Apr 18: Coastsiders estimate highway repair will take 103 days
Apr 18: Caltrans blasts loose rock above roadway to prepare for work crews
Apr 17: Caltrans crews to begin clearing debris Tuesday
Apr 11: Caltrans padlocks road, closes trails on Slide to hikers
Apr 11: Governor declares state of emergency in seven counties
Apr 7: Caltrans will blast loose debris from the cliffs early next week
Apr 6: Devil's slide and Shamrock Ranch slip-out are both deteriorating
Apr 6: Workers are removing loose rocks above Devil's Slide to prep for drilling
Apr 5: School District temporarily changes schedule and adds bus during closure
Apr 4: Rock slides delay Slide reopening, endanger visitors
Apr 3: Devil's Slide will be closed for at least two more days

Cheri Parr

July 31: Photos: Caltrans paving Devil's Slide on Thursday
May 28: Video: Tour Devil's Slide and repairs with Caltrans geologist, by Darin Boville
May 15: Video: Caltrans explains its Devil's Slide repair plan, by Darin Boville
Apr 20: Video: Some Sunny Day, by Darin Boville
Apr 12: Caltrans geologist explains the Slide, by Darin Boville
Apr 18: Caltrans blasts loose rock above roadway to prepare for work crews
Apr 7: A wet and stormy afternoon on the Slide, by Darin Boville
Apr 5: The Slide and Shamrock Ranch, by Darin Boville
Apr 3: The Slide 18 hours after closing, by Darin Boville

Cheri Parr

May 26: Album: Rebuilding Devil's Slide, and a persistent question, by Cheri Parr
May 17: Photo: Almost to the edge of the known world
May 16: Photos: How Caltrans is drilling those holes under the roadbed
May 7: Photo: We're all getting a little anxious
Apr 27: Photos: Caltrans removes rock hazard and gets to work
Apr 15: Photo: Geologists rappel on Devil's Slide
Apr 7: Album: A wet and stormy day on the Slide, by Cheri Parr
Apr 5: Album: The Slide and Shamrock Ranch are deteriorating, by Cheri Parr
Apr 3: Album: The Slide 18 hours after closing, by Barry Parr

Mike Wong, 1995

A slippery slope: Devil's Slide in 1983
A slippery slope: Devil's Slide in 1995
Fly through Devil's Slide using Google Earth

Caltrans Devil's Slide updates
Caltrans webcam at intersection of Highways 1 & 92
KNEW Slide coverage

The boulders, weighing up to four tons, that fell on Devil’s Slide Monday have complicated repairs to the highway.

Before CalTrans crews can work on the highway, the risk of a rock slide must be eliminated.  Crews will have to climb the cliff overlooking the highway on ropes and pry loose rocks and other material to ensure the safety of crews working on the highway. And that work cannot begin until the rain stops. CalTrans spokesperson John Cunliffe says that there are numerous rocks perched precariously on the cliff.

Cunliffe says that it’s very important that curiosity-seekers stay off the Slide because of the possibility of further rock slides.

I wanted to take a few minutes out from the craziness to thank everyone for coming to Coastsider during the Devil’s Slide outage.

Monday was the biggest day in Coastsider’s history. We delivered more than 4,000 pages to 1,200 unique users, and a bunch of people registered on the site or signed up for Coastsider Alerts.  This is above and beyond a recent spurt in our traffic. In typical week, we host about 2,500 different readers viewing 7,500 pages. This is no typical week.

We did our best to meet your expectations by being the first source with detailed photos of the damage, the first source anywhere to report that the Slide would not be open Monday afternoon, and the first site to post detailed video of the damage.  Compare our footage to the repurposed video that you get from the local TV news shows.

Now would be a good time to let your friends know about Coastsider.  You can send them our URL (http://coastsider.com), recommend that they subscribe to our Alerts , or use the “email” link at the top of every story to recommend a particular story, such as our exclusive video of the Slide.

This year’s Pacific Coast Dream Machines Show has been cancelled.  The organizers cancelled the event because the ongoing rain made it impossible to prepare the fields at the airport for parking for the April 30 event. The closure of Devil’s Slide also created an air of uncertainty around the event. Dream Machines is the annual largest fundraiser for the Coastside Adult Day Health Center.

It is truly unbelievable. Have they have no morals, no honesty, no sense of decency?

As a volunteer for State Assemblymen Leland Yee, who is running against Mike Nevin and Lou Papan for State Senator, I have been posting Leland’s signs. It seems that we can’t prevent signs from being stolen whether it be local or statewide issues.

On Friday March 24th, with the permission of the owner, we posted a large 4’ X 6’ Leland Yee sign on the property west of Tom and Pete’s (Southeast corner of Hwy. 1 and Hwy. 92). There was a much smaller sign at that location for Mike Nevin which we did not touch or interfere with.

By noontime Monday Yee’s sign had been removed. Mike Nevin’s sign was still there. A check with both the Half Moon Bay and CalTrans corporation yards established that they had not removed the sign—-thus it was stolen.

The value of each sign is in excess of $80—-this constitutes grand theft-larceny.

Another identical sign was posted at the same location at mid-afternoon Saturday. April 1st. On each lower corner of the sign stated in large bold letters “Posted with owner’s permission-Removal constitutes grand theft-larceny”. By mid-day today, Monday, April 3rd the sign had again been taken. Mike Nevin’s sign is still there and untouched.

Immediately I went to the Half Moon Bay police to report the theft. Case No. 06-488. I was advised to put up a third sign at that location, advise the police when it is posted and they will monitor and patrol at that location.

Is this democracy in action?

John F.  Lynch
Half Moon Bay

Darin Boville

Click on the picture to see our tour of the Devil's Slide taped at about noon on Monday, produced by Darin Boville. You can to use the Quicktime controls to pause and back-up to look at certain scenes again.

UPDATE: KTVU ran a story which included some footage of a couple of huge boulders that came down the cliff at the Slide a couple of hours after Darin and I were there.

Devil’s Slide will be closed for at least two more days, according to Lauren Wonder, chief spokesperson for CalTrans District 4.
The information currently on 511 traffic information (and 511.org)—which says the Slide will open at 4pm today—is incorrect according to Wonder.

Wonder told Coastsider at 3pm today that not only were there “slipouts” at the Slide and near Shamrock Ranch, but that at 2pm “some boulders had come down on the roadway”, creating a third reason to keep the road closed.

Wonder said that geologists had taken core samples today that would have to be taken to the lab for analysis.

UPDATED: We have created an album of all our photos from the slide, which we will continue to update. You should still start with this article, because the captions will put it in perspective, but you can click here to view the album of all our photos.

We went up past the barriers to see what was happening on the Devil’s Slide.  The action has moved from the subsiding roadway near Pacifica to the Slide itself, where Highway 1 was closed in 1995.

When the slide was repaired in 1995, sensors were installed in the roadbed to measure when the earth started spreading the road again.  That’s what’s happening now. The lights that are connected to the sensors came on late last week and a few more times before CalTrans closed the road Sunday night.

CalTrans personnel on the scene told us that they won’t be able to do anything until the rain stops and the cliff stops sliding.

Click on the pictures for a larger version.

Barry Parr

Approaching the slide location from the north, you first see the warning lights that a few drivers have seen in the past few days.  The lights are activated when sensors in the roadbed indicate it is widening. The orange circle shows where the cracks have appeared in the road.

Barry Parr

The crack nearest the ocean shows indications of recent efforts to fill it in.  The faint white paint line moving to the upper left corner of the photo is a paint line that shows where the slide is separating.

Barry Parr

The middle crack is about as wide as the yellow stripe on the highway and follows a seam in the asphalt.  It goes down about 10 inches to below the asphalt. The white paint line is very visible in this picture.

Barry Parr

The concrete railing has been sliding toward the ocean for some time now, but it has moved several inches in the last few days.

Click below for more photos.

...there's more after the jump.

Caltrans closed the Devil’s Slide indefinitely at 6:18 Sunday evening. Cracks 4 inches wide had developed on the slide at 2pm Sunday afternoon.

We could have posted this sooner, but coincidentally, our family was probably one of the last to cross in the northbound direction, and were turned away at Linda Mar when we came back.  We experienced a substantial dip in the northbound lane near Shamrock Ranch, the same site that had been subsiding and temporarily repaired earlier in the week. However, the cracks that led to the highway’s closure are about a mile further south.

This will increase the amount of traffic on Highway 1 southbound and on Highway 92 as northbound commuters take the long way around.

It is unclear whether SamTrans route 294, which begins at Linda Mar, will run tomorrow.  The SamTrans information line at (800) 660-4287 opens at 6am on Monday.

Meanwhile, heavy rains are forecast for Monday.

The San Mateo County Transit District Board of Directors is looking for applicants for its Citizens Advisory Committees. CAC member responsibilities include providing input to the board on current and potential transit needs. CAC members play a vital role in the development of transit and transportation related issues throughout San Mateo County.

The  SamTrans CAC is comprised of 15 volunteer members, who represent a specific segment of the community. This recruitment seeks to fill five member positions, which will serve until April 2009.

• Two Community representatives
• Two Bus Rider representatives
• One Multimodal representative

The CAC meets on the first Wednesday of each month at 6:30 p.m. in San Carlos. Applicants will be interviewed by a board subcommittee, with the whole board approving the successful candidates. Interested persons can download an application from the SamTrans Web site at [url=http://www.samtrans.com]http://www.samtrans.com[/url] or contact the board secretary at 650-508-6279. Application deadline is Friday, April 14, 2006 at 5:00 p.m.

The San Mateo County Transit District manages the fixed-route bus and Redi-Wheels paratransit services; administers Caltrain rail service which is governed by the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board; operates a shuttle program; and is a partner in operating the BART-SFO extension.