Death Valley Off-Road Adventures

Roads are a mess out there.

 

Really, a dashcam? Where's the epic drone shot as it's carried into the Salton Sea!

Love it man, love it.

 

Well, looks like the 190 is out for a bit again! Usual spots between Zabriske and Badwater Road (NPS photo).

See more images from the NPS from around the park here:

https://www.nps.gov/media/photo/gallery.htm?pg=7589199&id=0A999AF1-CA8E-4579-918E-722B2EBBD152

190 also covered with debris around Stovepipe. Presume Badwater Rd. is covered in a variety of places as well.

Outside the park there are still lots of closures, including 395 from Inyokern to Bishop, 190 from 395 to the 127, and the 127 from 15 to Shoshone.

 

That's a lot of miles that are closed. Wonder what's going on for the 395 stretch.

 

According to District 9 there are multiple spots with flooding and debris along that huge stretch. Naturally there are folks backing up at both ends begging for updates but District 9 says they are working it and don't have an estimate as yet.

In other news, it appears the 190 completely washed away once again at Centennial Wash like it did last summer which took Caltrans many weeks to repair that time. (Centennial is between Olancha and Panamint Springs). So expect the 190 over the Inyos to be gone for a good while again...

 

So they didn't really fix it?

 

I take one glance at that wash and I say "looks like a great place for a viaduct." The main problems being funding and the amount of time required to design a viaduct (even as an emergency repair).

 

Why do something special for what the NWS always refers to as a "Thousand Year Flood"? I mean fixing it once every thousand years doesn't sound so bad.

The good news is that after they repair it this time it should be good for 2,000 years. I'm pretty sure that's how probability and statistics works.

 

I'll jump on the TS Hilary carnage band wagon. Yesterday we were stopped by some water flowing across the Redrock-Randsburg Rd. Koehn Lake had water in it.

 

I think repairs never consider re-design because that's a different bucket of money. So it could wash away again and they'd "repair" it again. Then when someone notices they've been there a few times, they'll send it to the project side to rebuild it.

 

I doubt anything factors in other than impact on the local population. And how quickly they can repair it. Remember how many miles of road remained unpaved in 2010? And then one summer they replaced the road surfaces? Mostly going out to the Racetrack.

 

Not necessarily correct. Emergency funds can be used for redesign as a repair, but somebody needs to initiate it by making those recommendations to begin with. Unfortunately for District 9, the people most likely to make those recommendations are based out of an office in Sacramento, and probably aren't getting called out to a lot of those sites.

 

I know 3 engineers that work District 9. All smart guys and 2 of them are very high up. I'll ask the next time I see one of them about the half ass repairs. My guess is it's a combination of funding and job security. lol

Now about this hurricane. What a joke. I was all prepared for mayhem and it drizzled a little. Cali can't even do hurricanes right. lol

 

From what I've seen, some parts of Southern California got properly fucked with over 12" of rain in 24 hours.

I'm no meteorologist but what did you expect in Bishop since hurricanes less severe the further inland they go and this was only a Cat 2 before making landfall.

 

I expected the 6-8" of rain I was promised by the meteorologist. We got 2. lol

 

I'm not aware of many jobs other than a meteorologist where you can be wrong more that you're right and still have a job.

 

Yep. The other one is stock analyst. Both those jobs you can screw up all the time and still get a paycheck. I'm kinda envious actually. lol

 

My first thought would simply be that the geologists and engineers with Geotech don't even get called out for washouts like these, and that any repair recommendations are coming from D9 Materials (basically handling the pavement section and immediate subsurface) or Hydraulics (since it's a drainage), and probably consist of "replace-in-kind." Or, alternatively, Geotech is making recommendations for improvements that aren't getting funded and/or aren't bothering to make such recommendations because they know it won't get funded.

 

There was a joke running earlier. It had to do with naming and blowing.