A huge piece of California's Highway 1 near Big Sur collapsed into the ocean
A huge piece of California's Highway 1 was washed out this week by a winter storm that brought heavy rain and snow.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/30/us/big-sur-road-collapse-trnd/index.html
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9204911/Drone-footage-captures-CRATER-Californias-Highway-One-Big-Sur-rain-washes-road-away.html
California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) officials said in a statement Friday a debris flow from the hillside above the roadway "overwhelmed drainage infrastructure, flowed across the highway, and eroded the road resulting in the complete loss of a segment of Highway 1" at Rat Creek, about 15 miles south of Big Sur, a mountainous stretch of the state's central coast.
California Highway Patrol Officer John Yerace said he was in the area on Thursday around 4 p.m. when he noticed "this section of roadway, specifically the southbound lane, had fallen off into the ocean."
Images and drone footage from the scene show a huge gap in the scenic highway, which runs along much of the California coast.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/30/us/big-sur-road-collapse-trnd/index.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
beautiful part of the country. 
Doesn't look like anyone was hurt.. so good!
I’m glad you look back with fondness now. There sure are lots worse military assignments than being in Monterrey - 
...around 2002, from an older man who had been in one of the military bands, - Joe Varhula. Interesting guy. I recently Googled him, and there are many references to him by former students who are professional drummers and speak of him as one of the best teachers they ever had. Greater Chicago area.
I grew up in Rochester, NY, home of the Eastman School Of Music. Many Eastman grads spend some time in various of the military bands.
I spent 4 years in the Air Force Nurse Corps as a pediatric nurse practitioner. My second active duty tour was 2 years at Yokota Air Base outside Tokyo. Fascinating, and it changed my life, too. Met my husband there (pilot, next door neighbor in the BOQ). Aforementioned younger son and his older brother would not exist had I not been stationed in Japan.
I played the flute thru high school, and piano. I still have 58 yr old flute, and a wonderful old upright piano built in 1918, and I play when I am the only one homeostasis there is no one to hear my mistakes. For the past 9 years, I’ve been in a handbell choir.
Do you still play?
Even asshole engineers like the late KGO radio host Dr Bill Wattenburg. His plan to use railroad flatcars to temporarily span a washed out bridge on Interstate 5, in California, was used by Caltrans. I-5 was patched up and running in, like, two weeks, but one could make the argument they jumped on it FAST because it was a critical transportation corridor.
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/publicroads/95fall/p95au2.
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If you go to asshole Dr Bill Wattenburg's site, you can see how easy it is to adapt it to local conditions. (The site won't let me pirate his photos)
The Modular Bridge Design: The modular bridge constructed by Caltrans is shown in Fig 2. The individual 10 ft. wide by 53 ft. long flatcar modules (Fig. 2a) are massive steel frame structures which are designed to carry loads of up to 50 tons. The flatcar modules are coupled together in interlocked fashion such that the module connections emulate pinned joints (Fig. 2b). The 50 ft. wide roadway deck of the assembled bridge consists of four flatcars side by side which span 53 ft. between two vertical piers (Fig. 2c). The piers are constructed with a single flatcar in the horizontal direction (on top) supported by two half-flatcar vertical columns. The pier structure provides its own foundation with a horizontally placed flatcar on the ground at the foot of each pier. In the transverse direction, two diagonal steel braces are added to provide stability and stiffness to the assembled pier structure. Strong surplus boxcar center beams are used for the diagonal braces. In the longitudinal direction, the underside of the bridge is left open without obstruction to allow for passage of traffic from cross streets or railroads spanned by the bridge.
A new modular multi-lane steel freeway bridge is constructed from surplus railroad flatcar decks. It can be erected on site in a few days' time. It has been built and static load tested for emergency freeway bridge repair. This inexpensive modular bridge may also have broad application around the world for low-cost bridges in areas where funds are limited. We have performed an extensive computer dynamic analysis which indicates that this simple modular design is as strong and dynamically stable as many contemporary freeway bridges, and, when used for emergency repairs, it can withstand severe aftershocks expected immediately after a major earthquake.
http://wattenburg.us/flatcar-bridge.html
Also from one photo in the CNN article. There aren't too many of those pull-over spots along that stretch that have trees right at their edge, so, in satellite view, I looked for one that did and confirmed it by matching up the street view.
One of the best things about Google is that it makes this sort of thing possible.
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You have to give those officers credit, they're trained to be observant and notice every subtle detail. 
