OCOTILLO, Calif. — It was not a good day to be driving between Phoenix and San Diego on Monday.
The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) said several miles of Interstate 8 eastbound, between the towns of Jacumba and Ocotillo, was closed because of a massive rockslide triggered by a storm Sunday afternoon.
Everett Townsend is the chief deputy director for maintenance and operations for Caltrans. He said some of the boulders that crashed down to the roadway were as big as school buses.
As for clean-up, Townsend said construction contractors were called in with crews working around the clock to take care of the mess.
The only way to do that was to use explosives to blow up the boulders.
“Drilling into the boulder where we can and place explosives,” Townsend said.
The process was repeated again and again until the boulders were small enough to be removed with heavy machinery.
Townsend said he is hopeful the I-8 will reopen by Tuesday morning.
Traffic in both directions was backed up for miles with people waiting to get through. In order to ease the congestion, Caltrans diverted eastbound traffic onto westbound lanes and allow up to 15 minutes for traffic to flow through and cross back over.
Some drivers heading east toward the Valley waited as long as three hours to get through.
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