SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. — With heavy rains forecast over the next several days and no long-term solution for the latest landslide in the San Clemente area, Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner has extended its revised schedule of cancellations and bus-bridge service through at least Friday, Feb. 9.
Meanwhile, the state of California issued an emergency declaration Thursday for the landslide area, which will allow officials to access up to $10 million in funding to protect the track and restore service, the Orange County Transportation Authority announced.
The Amtrak schedule, which includes two outright cancellations in each direction, and a number of trains beginning or terminating short of their normal points of origin or destination, is available here. While the schedule is basically has it has been for more than a week, the Surfliner website now describes the revisions here in much more detail.
Metrolink service on the Orange County and Inland Empire/Orange County lines remains suspended south of Laguna Niguel/Mission Viejo on weekdays and San Juan Capistrano on Weekends.
The latest slide, which brought down sections of a bridge for a hillside walkway, has now been graded and covered with plastic tarps in an effort to prevent further sliding during the current storm system. The emergency declaration allows the Orange County Transportation Authority, which has responsibility for the tracks, to access the funds for emergency repairs.
“I’m grateful for the state’s partnership and for recognizing what an important issue this is for regional mobility,” OCTA CEO Darrell E. Johnson said in a press release. A protect team is still analyzing the best way to address the slope movement, the release said.
— Updated at 6:40 p.m. with information on emergency declaration.
The best way ro prevent slides…vegetation. You need a solid root structure from plants to hold the soil in place.
Which is why some species work much better than others. You can’t know the root structure from the thickness of vegetation above ground. If the species doesn’t develop a solid root structure in its first season, it’s useless.