Workers Returning, Carefully, to the Scene of Epic Landslide on the California Coast

"California’s restless new stretch of beachfront property in Big Sur will soon have a road," according to an article by Lisa M. Krieger.

The new road is actually just a step in the process toward a more permanent solution, but workers need to plan a route "across the loose debris field created by one of California’s largest coastal landslides in recent history" to erect a motion sensing radar. "There also are plans to start excavation on the southern side of now-buried highway just north of the San Luis Obispo County line in order to build a ledge for construction equipment," adds Krieger.

Motion sensing technology already saved lives, as workers had been evacuated from the area for several days when the slide released 2 million cubic meters of earth down the hill on May 20, 2017—earth loosened and unleashed by the winter's rains.

Now Highway 1 lies beneath some 80 feet of dirt and rock, and it could be a year before the picturesque highway is reopened.