Hwy 17 open with limited travel

Traffic is moving on Hwy 17 after the heavily traveled route was shut down because of a massive mudslide.

“I was maybe gonna be inconvenienced by it today, I have a musical engagement to play up in San Francisco tonight,” said Phil Johnston of Scotts Valley.

One lane in each direction is open on the highway. Crews are still monitoring the situation, trying to figure out how to stabilize it.

‘”We have the equipment to clean it, we have excavators, loaders, dozers ,” said Abraham Tirado with Granite Rock Construction. “It’s a matter of finding room for all this dirt and the right procedure so nobody gets hurt.”

Many in Glenwood are happy that some lanes are open. The town is right off the highway and during the closure it was tough to get out.

“Oh freedom, we can go eat, and we can fix our car, and get groceries,” said Jeannine Simoes of Glenwood. “We were running out of half and half and breakfast food.”

Residents said they could only go to San Jose, but even that was questionable. Even though Santa Cruz is about a 10 minute drive, it took them hours to get there because one of their main roads was washed out.

“All the neighbors are kind of walking up and down the street to make sure everyone’s ok and if they needed anything,” said Simoes . “So it’s been kind of rough going.”

Now things are running much more smoothly. While limited travel is permitted on Hwy 17, crews advise using caution.

“This is not a theme park that you can come and take pictures,” said Tirado . “This is a very dangerous situation so if you don’t have to drive on 17 stay away.”

Crews also said they are not sure how long construction will take, but that they plan to monitor the slide throughout the weekend.