FREMONT — Although Caltrans made some efforts to clear highway drains ahead of this past weekend’s powerful atmospheric river storm, the seemingly nonstop rain overwhelmed drainage systems and led to a patch of Interstate 880 being severely flooded and closed.
In the deepest parts, the California Highway Patrol estimates water was standing at roughly three to three-and-a-half feet in the area south of the Thornton Avenue overcrossing of 880 near Fremont and Newark, forcing closures from late Sunday night into Monday morning in both directions.
“It was a small section of freeway but it completely backed up I-880,” Officer Dustin Kennerley, a spokesperson with the CHP said Tuesday. “It was nightmare territory.”
Kennerley said because no one could pass the patches of water, 880 was closed between Mowry Avenue and Thornton. The northbound direction was closed around 10 p.m. Sunday night, and didn’t reopen until about 6 a.m. Monday, while the southbound direction was closed just after midnight on Monday morning, and didn’t reopen until about 8:35 a.m.
“I haven’t seen anything like this where it shuts down a freeway. Every once in a while we get some standing water but nothing like this,” Kennerley said.
“We basically made our own lake on 880,” he added.
Cars and trucks backed up just behind the standing water late Sunday as the highway closure went into effect, while some drivers that tried to pass through ended up with their cars partially submerged, according to footage from KTVU.
Caltrans workers were seen in orange jumpsuits in knee deep water working to clear out drains along the highway’s edges Monday morning, racing against the needs of backed up commuters.
Janis Mara, a spokesperson for Caltrans, said the flooding occurred for a simple reason: too much water.
“The storm drains were clogged due to the exceptional amount of rain from the storm. The large amount of water from the storm was more than the pumps could keep up with,” Mara said in an email Tuesday.
Some debris, including trash that blows onto the highway or that is thrown onto the road by drivers, also affected the drains’ performance, Mara said.
Mara said Caltrans crews were out clearing drains a couple days ahead of the major storm system to try and avoid such a backup, and said in general, there is “adequate drainage” on the highways in the area.
“Storm events like this weekend’s atmospheric river are few and far between,” she said.
The southbound side of the road likely took longer to clear because it’s a bit more flat in some sections, where water was settling, as opposed to the more graded section on the northbound side, Kennerley said.
Kennerley called the road grading, the trash that clogged drains, and the massive amount of rainfall “a combination of all the worst things going wrong at once,” leading to the highway shutdown.
“Not to make a pun,” Kennerley said, “but it was like the perfect storm.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com