Rain caves in road near Redhawk

By: DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer | Thursday, January 6, 2005 11:10 PM PST ∞

REDHAWK ---- For many in Southwest County, the rain has been an annoyance. It has muddied shoes, soaked clothes and prompted the unfurling of umbrellas. But for seven families in a rural pocket of horse ranches near Redhawk, it has caved in the road that connects them to civilization ---- Via Pascal.

Runoff dumped by last week's storms carved a meandering 8-foot-deep and 4-foot-wide gully into one side of Via Pascal and exposed a telephone cable on the other. A section of the sandy dirt road was left looking like a model of a dramatically eroded canyon in a national park.

And weather forecasters say much more rain is coming, starting today.

"We're probably going to get stranded," said Katie Madrid, a 40-year-old horse trainer who lives with her husband, four children, 20 horses, three dogs and eight birds on a hilly piece of chaparral-carpeted ground along Anza Road. Her home is about a half-mile away from the immaculate new tract houses and lawns of Morgan Hill in the Redhawk area.

No matter.

"We're completely prepared to get stuck," Madrid said.

She said the family has stockpiled supplies and is capable of making a dash around the caved-in road, if absolutely necessary, in their four-wheel-drive sport-utility vehicle. And they already have moved to higher ground their two show horses that don't cope well with rivers of mud.

"They're kind of prima donnas. They're not used to mud," Madrid said. "They're used to fluffy bedding and nice cozy blankets."

Being that the half-mile of Via Pascal is not among the 2,600 miles of rural roads maintained by the county, the Madrids are not exactly used to a smooth ride into Redhawk and Temecula. And they have been more than content to bounce down the bumpy country lane that neighbor Dominick Grossi smooths over from time to time, when he fires up his tractor.

Grossi, the 51-year-old owner of a delicatessen and market in Fallbrook that bears his name, is glad to do it. However, he said this latest challenge is beyond his amateur road-fixing expertise acquired through hands-on experience.

"It's never been this bad," he said. "I've never seen it like this."

This time, rather than firing up his tractor, Grossi is asking the county to step in. He says he realizes Via Pascal is not a county road, but this situation is different. With the deluge of rain, hills denuded by last summer's fires and grading for new homes in the area, the erosion is many times worse than it ever has been in his 14 years of living there, he said.

Grossi contends the road is so badly eroded that only professionals have any business working on it.

"I don't think it's a weekend rent-a-tractor kind of thing," he said.

Besides that, he said, it's a public hazard.

"If we wanted a fire truck, if we had an emergency, there's no way they'd get out here," Grossi said. "You could get a car down in there sideways and never see it."

The county so far has refused to step in.

"They just basically blew us off completely," Grossi said. "They just said, 'Sorry.'"

County Transportation Director George Johnson said the neighborhood will have to figure out a way to pool its resources and bring in a contractor because the county won't ---- and can't ---- make repairs.

"I can't legally spend any county road funds on maintaining that road," Johnson said. "It's very unfortunate, and I feel for them. But unfortunately there are many, many miles of this type of road in the county area, and this happens every time we get a good rain like this."

For now, the residents say they don't know what they are going to do about the problem. Maybe, they say, a heavy equipment operator moving earth for one of the new homes under construction nearby will wander over and lend a hand.

Yet, however murky life gets for the little neighborhood in the next few days, it is not likely to persuade the hardy residents to move out.

"I'd sure much rather do this than live in a tract, any day of the week," Madrid said.

Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2616, or ddowney@californian.com.