UPDATE: Caltrans reports that all lanes of Highway 101 that were closed Saturday due to flooding have reopened to traffic as of Sunday afternoon.
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Drivers on Highway 101 in southern Santa Barbara County were hit with a surprise early Saturday morning when cones detoured all traffic off the highway. Debris from recent storms and flooding caused a full closure of the highway through Gaviota.
Aurelio Cortez said he was heading home to Oxnard after spending time with his family, and ended up parked just off the southbound Cabrillo Highway exit.
“We were just driving through, coming from Santa Maria, heading back home over to Oxnard and it was closed,” he said.
The closure extended from Highway 1 just north of Gaviota to Winchester Canyon Road in Goleta.
Drivers were advised to take Highway 154 as a detour. However, Giovanni Ledoux said he and his grandmother felt safer waiting for the 101 to reopen.
“We drove from Sonoma County this morning," Ledoux said. "I'm with my grandma. She's from Colorado. She was just dropping me off at UCSB for school. We don't want to take the 154 just because she drove her RV. That's in the mountains.”
Ledoux said he and his grandma had been waiting for the highway to open since 10 a.m. Saturday morning, after starting their drive at 2 a.m.
He said there’s not much they can do except wait.
“[We're] just kind of going with the flow right now," Ledoux said. "[We're] kind of awaiting what to do until they kind of give us some more news.”
Cortez said he’s never experienced a road closure on the 101 before and didn’t expect the rain to make a difference this trip.
“So we travel through here quite often and we just called our daughter because she's over there still and we warned her so she can get home another route,” Cortez said.
As of 5 p.m. Saturday, the southbound side of the highway was reopened, but the northbound lanes remained closed.
