Pfeiffer Canyon Bridge
© Kodiak GreenwoodA mudslide triggered by the recent heavy rains has damaged Pfeiffer Canyon Bridge on Highway 1 in Big Sur beyond repair.
Storms have wreaked hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage to California's roads and bridges, but nowhere is the problem more obvious than on a stretch of Highway 1 just south of Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park, where the last link to the rest of civilization is about to slide down a hillside.

The Pfeiffer Canyon Bridge spans a valley that has exploded with the cracking of falling redwood trees and the crash of rocks as the condemned bridge slides slowly toward the sea.

Two weeks ago, local James Wolfenden, 71, was out hiking when he spotted a jagged crack in the bridge's underbelly. It has since slid downhill several feet — though Caltrans isn't sure just how much because rain washed its markers away. Its northern end is visibly buckling and sagging like a roller coaster stopped in time.

Big Sur bridge map
© John Blanchard
Winter storms have ravaged the Central Coast, dumping more than 60 inches of rain and eroding areas people have tried to tame. To the north of Big Sur Village, crews are tearing down the doomed bridge. To the south, a landslide has covered parts of Highway 1 with boulders the size of suburban houses. The 435 Big Sur residents and workers who stayed behind have been caught in between, trapped in paradise.

By Thursday evening, PG&E had strung power back through to the village, and residents worked together to arrange food and medicine delivery by air. Some slept in and worked in their gardens, taking advantage of the unexpected vacation.

"There are people who panic and want to leave right away," said resident Adam House, eating donated chili with his young daughter, Abigail, at the Fernwood Resort north of town, where people who can't get home are hanging out. "There are other people who say 'Let's get the soup going.' Survival isn't about a bunch of high-tech gear. It's about perspective. Now there is no agenda. It's not so bad."

For years, the rains didn't come, locking California in drought. Wildfires scorched huge swathes of land, and farmers searched the skies for clouds. But the storms returned with fury this season, assaulting highways and causing $493 million in road damage — so far — that state officials weren't prepared to address. The storms have inundated cities from San Diego in the south to Crescent City in the north.

"I've never seen a winter season quite like this," said Susana Cruz, a Caltrans spokeswoman in District Five, which includes Monterey County. "It's one day at a time for roads across the state. The bridge here (in Big Sur) is beyond repair, and it could take a year to get a new one up. Locals know this is part of living on the coast, and they have been very patient."

Big Sur, known to tourists as one of the world's most beautiful meetings of land and water, is largely undeveloped and sparsely populated. The rains — the most the region has seen in 102 years — have crippled the area. Like elsewhere in the state, storms have caused tons of soupy mud and boulders to roll atop highways, ripping out their underpinnings, submerging them and turning small cracks into gaping potholes. The damage will take millions of dollars and many years to fully repair, a Caltrans official said.