Ortega Highway Closure Impacts School Commute
February 22, 2017
Recent rainstorms have caused several problems for SJHHS students, ranging from dysfunctional fire alarms, muddy parking lots, crashed golf carts, and, now, the closure of a 27 mile stretch of Ortega Highway.
On January 25, commuters began to notice that part of the side of the highway, a half a mile past Gibby Road, was caving. When later that day Caltrans maintenance crews noticed cracks in the road, engineers were called in, who then determined that the road was not safe to use.
Caltrans, the state agency that manages the highway and public transportation systems, stated that heavy rain had caused a “2-foot void under the lanes where soil and roadway material had been washed away.”
The sinkhole on the highway made it so that if I were to go from my house to school, I would have to go all the way around Lake Elsinore, on the toll road; which would take about 2 and a half hours just to get to school each morning
— Kaily Johnson
According to Caltrans, the road is closed 3.3 miles eastbound of Christianitos Road, and 6.9 miles westbound of the Nichols Institute. While residents of the area and employees at the Nichols Institute are allowed access going westbound, the area is still completely blocked off to residents going east.
The road closure has affected SJHHS students trying to commute to school, especially SJHHS junior Kaily Johnson, who lives off of Ortega Highway at the border between San Juan Capistrano and Murrieta.
“The collapsing of the road happened during the day while I was at school, and since it was completely unexpected, all I had was the clothes I had worn to school that day, and my backpack,” said Johnson. “The sinkhole on the highway made it so that if I were to go from my house to school, I would have to go all the way around Lake Elsinore, on the toll road; which would take about 2 and a half hours just to get to school each morning.”
To avoid the commute, Johnson stayed with her grandmother in San Juan Capistrano, but her mother still had to frequently make the commute to take care of family and house matters.
The road was closed for almost a month, from January 25 to February 16.
Part of the reason for such a lengthy delay could be that “the equipment needed to assess the roadway is in Sacramento,” according to KTLA.
The effects of the road closure was a wakeup call to many SoCal residents as to our preparedness for heavy rains and storm-like conditions, especially after weather that caused the road closure, and the deadly storms that hit the area over President’s Day weekend.
