Another landslide on Southside Road has pushed back this week’s planned opening of the road another few weeks, County Supervisor Mark Medina said Monday.
The road has been closed since late May, while there have now been two more slides since the initial damage caused a closure.
“They did have another slide last week and there’s some problems,” Medina said Monday. “The last thing I heard was possibly another three weeks.”
Medina said with the start of school happening around the area this week, the county’s Resources Management Agency had been in contact with those campuses’ leaders about the latest development.
About three weeks ago, the contract engineer working on the Southside Road landslide repairs said he expected the road to reopen today, about 11 weeks after a closure to a portion of the rural, hillside thoroughfare.
Gregory Bucknell, the licensed civil engineer hired by San Benito County for the project, told San Benito Live at the time a second landslide July 13 had pushed back previous prospects for an opening to the road.
The initial landslide occurred in May, with the road closed May 29. The county approved a contract with Don Chapin Co. for the work, which started a few days later.
Due to the landslides, Southside Road has been closed between Blossom Lane and Tyler Trail.
-Kollin Kosmicki
