SOUTH GRADE CLOSED BY ROCK SLIDE

MUDSLIDES
The debris flows that have been feared since the October fires occured Sunday night, closing S-6, the South Grade Road to Palomar Mountain.
The heavy rains that had been anticipated all weekend began pelting areas that had been burned, and which were prime candidates for mud and rock slides, called debris flows.
Your Roadrunner reporter personally came upon the rockslide about three quarters of the way up the grade at about 10 p.m. Sunday night as I was returning home
Most of the road up the grade was overrun with gravel and large rocks. Fog and rain were alternately thick and heavy as well, so that it was hard to tell where the road left off and the debris began.
So much so that I considered very strongly turning around and going back down even before I encountered the Dept. of Public Works bulldozer that was working in the fog, moving piles of rocks out of the way.
The bulldozer’s operator got out of the rig and approached.
“You can’t go any further. It’s impassable. There’s hundreds of tons of rock on the road,” he said.
I made a U-turn, and so did a car that had been following me up the grade, and who turned out to be an astronomer of who was heading to work at “The Monestery,” at Palomar Observatory.
It could be a day or perhaps much longer before the road is reopened, especially if the debris flow has damaged the road structure.