Real photos of Highway 17 and Skyline in the Santa Cruz Mountains this week

These are real photos taken this very week of what's going on in the mountains where Jeff Liebermann lives due to the Pineapple Express dropping unheard of rain in California (drought my ass!).

Highway 17 landslide turns car over, blocks both lanes, and cleanup crew killed.

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Hole in Skyline along the crest of the mountain ridge above the San Andreas Fault opened up this week.

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Why people in vans even think to attempt a crossing is beyond me.

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Reply to
Stijn De Jong
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i doubt he was attempting to cross it. more likely he was not paying any attention and only realized it when it was too late.

Reply to
nospam

...and yet in parts of the Central and Salinas Valleys, and some of the Central and Southern California Counties, agriculture has sucked up so much ground water it will take years to replenish via perculation, so there the drought persists even with the surface being wet.

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Regards, 

Savageduck
Reply to
Savageduck

Thank you for posting.

Note to the Duck: IMHO the posted images are examples of images that should not be altered in any manner, except possibly some very mild sharpening.

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PeterN
Reply to
PeterN

Said with your usual knowledge of the facts:

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PeterN
Reply to
PeterN

since you claim to have the facts, what was the driver's intention?

was he texting? did his brakes fail? were his tires bald?

or did he think he was evel knievel?

we await the answers.

Reply to
nospam

Don't you have something to drink?

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Regards, 

Savageduck
Reply to
Savageduck

Much of the state is still in drought mode. The map below is from last month and does NOT include the recent rains:

Plug in "State" and "California" to get the historical graphs:

Not exactly. Only one Granite Construction worker was killed by a dump truck, not the overturned car:

I was filling up a mega-pothole in the road up my hill in the dark. Not too clever but if it didn't get done, someone was going to break an axle or disappear into the hole. I had two near misses, both times by distracted drivers talking on their cell phones.

Probably not the fault of the fault. More likely an underground spring or river under the road, which undermined the pavement.

Here's the story on the van:

More Santa Cruz flood and mud photos:

View of the San Lorenzo river just outside my office:

Except for the usual roof leaks, my house and office downtown are doing fine. My local (San Lorenzo Valley) weather page: Might be something of interest in there as most links can be adapter to other areas.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

"I saw what I thought was mud, I stepped on the brake, and it was too late," he said.

stupid driver syndrome.

Reply to
nospam

I think you're implying that these photos were photoshopped, but they weren't. They appear to be real.

Here's the news story on that photo (kindly provided by Jeff Liebermann) which has multiple photos easily corroborating that original photo.

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Or are you insinuating they're all photoshopped by the news media?

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Reply to
Stijn De Jong

I know. I didn't say that more than one person was killed, as it was a father (and son) team working that day for Granite Construction where the father died (Tuesday, I think) from an accident.

The overturned car was apparently pushed to the other lanes and flipped over by the onrushing landslide. At least that's how I understood the news to state. The guy was unhurt who was driving the overturned car.

Is that your understanding also?

Yes. I didn't say it was the fault. I was just lining it up where it is for the people who don't live here. The fault itself is closer to about 600 feet level while Skyline is something like 3000 foot level, so it's a couple of miles as the crow flies from the actual fault itself.

Still, every road in the vicinity is cloesed, as you well know, from either landslides or mudslides, as are every major trail in the canyons on the San Jose side of the summit.

Thanks for that underlying story on the blue van. The photo, I know, is real; but it looks photoshopped. It was emailed to me by a friend, so I trusted it. Despite traveling as much as anyone, I've never had an accident in these mountains. I just don't understand how anyone can fall into that hole, unless they were parked over it when it happened.

Looking at your reference

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It seems their picture is even more spectacular:

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His power was out, so he got candles at the store. He should just have had a generator, like the rest of us have. The power went out about five or six times this winter alone, once for 4 or 4 days already.

He was driving too fast for the conditions. He thought the hole was mud. It was dark. It may have been raining. He had been on that road just an hour before (and there wasn't a hole at that time).

The guy moved here from NY city just this week, and Monday was his first day on the job. He's gonna learn that California weather, like the residents, is wacky!

But, you can't believe anything on California news because everything tends to the super monstrous liberal, so they distort facts accordingly (e.g., on the so-called drought).

This one of those is Highway 17 where the SUV flipped by the mudslide (supposedly) and the worker died cleaning it up:

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The mudslide wiped out both lanes of the northbound side, it seems:

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This is apparently the remains of his SUV, flipped right-side up:

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I'm trying to figure out where this one is?

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Is that Skyline? If so, it looks like it's a good place to put up a bridge.

Isn't that the same river that washed out Highway 9 last week?

I'm not sure what the plastic is supposed to do:

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We have been getting horizontal rain over on the Loma side of things.

Reply to
Stijn De Jong

It's my understanding that agriculture takes up 85% of California water. Of course, they don't advertise that. What they advertise on all the road signs is to conserve water at home. Yet all the homes in California only take about 15% of the water. And, we're already conserving like hell.

Yet, we have to pay for road signs to tell us to conserve water while we're driving.

It's a political farce.

Reply to
Stijn De Jong

looks like i was exactly right:

"I saw what I thought was mud, I stepped on the brake, and it was too late," he said.

Reply to
nospam

...and he was one of those NY drivers who know how to drive in California drizzle.

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Regards, 

Savageduck
Reply to
Savageduck

According to the article Jeff referenced, the driver was from NY city. It's his first week in California. He didn't know how to drive on mountain roads (apparently).

In NY, you look for "black ice". In CA, you look for black holes.

Reply to
Stijn De Jong

he's still a stupid driver.

Reply to
nospam

I am agreeing with you. If you can't miss a 20 foot wide hole, you're not gonna miss a pedestrian either. Or even a guardrail.

He was a bad driver, no doubt about it. I agree with you.

You're supposed to maintain control of your vehicle, and driving into a hole isn't maintaining control. He should have been able to stop.

If he couldn't stop, then he was driving too fast. What if someone was standing in the road, for example.

He'd have run them over.

Reply to
Stijn De Jong

A quick search. Public Policy Institute of California.

Reply to
Dean Hoffman

Exactly where did I make a positive statement of fact, other than my observation about your knowledge of the facts that support your conclusion. But then just another attempt at a twist.

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PeterN
Reply to
PeterN

Yep. The mudslide also shoved the over the center divider. Bad timing, I guess.

It's real, judging by the number of photos shot from different angles. Fake photos usually are singles.

Same here. Well, maybe if you don't include backing up into cars, trees, poles, hillsides, ditches, etc.

Possibly speeding. Look at the photo at: Notice how the van has literally plowed into the opposite side of the gully. If he were going slower, the van would have gone over nose down, and possibly ended up vertically, or fallen over on its top. However, I'm guessing. The driver was lucky.

Mine went out for more than 5 minutes perhaps 4 times. The longest was about 2 hrs.

Do people actually drive in New York city? Must have been quite a change for him.

Facts? We don't do no stinkin facts. This is the land of opinions, feelings, and progress through meditation.

Kinda makes me want to install an internal roll bar.

No EXIF info and therefore no lat-long.

Judging by slope and the "view", I agree. It's probably Skyline. See the red and white line at (if Hwy 9 is still closed):

Yes, but that was in Boulder Creek, 15 miles to the north.

Keep the rain and runoff from further eroding the hillside. However, it won't do anything for underground rivers and springs.

I hate when that happens. It ruins my rainfall measurements because the rain misses the rain gauge.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

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