Torrential Rains 2
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Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton and this is The Weather Notebook.

Four years ago along California's central coast, torrential downpours flooded homes caused mudslides and in the case of a major road on California's central coast, created a two hundred-foot gash with a brown stream at the bottom. Correspondent Robin White journeyed across the gash to the world beyond.

Storms swollen by El Nino had devastated the landscape, breaking Highway One in twenty different places. When the weather was bad enough, even helicopters wouldn't fly. Then the only way to get to the stranded communities was by bike. I was going in with people taking supplies to relatives. We drove as far as we could, put our bikes on our shoulders and slithered down a hundred feet of mudslide to the beach below. Up the other side and we were off, cycling on an empty road through wild scenery. Down below the windswept Pacific was hurling white waves onto the beaches and spitting foam hundreds of feet into the air. We turned inland at Palo Colorado Canyon, a misty, two thousand-foot canyon in the coast range. The valley floor was in ruins, full of fallen trees and in places the river was flowing down the road bed. We rode when we could and walked through the cold river sometimes up to our knees. When we found people it was like coming across a lost world. They were building makeshift bridges and sharing supplies and stories. When we arrived, they were surprised, we were the first outsiders they'd seen in several days. We delivered our food and left the next day, not unmoved by the experience. My comrades had helped out in adverse conditions. For me, I remember one moment when I put my foot into mud up to my ankle. I desperately tried to step out onto firmer ground but there was nowhere else to go. I succumbed to the experience and momentarily it seemed to symbolize living more fully.

Correspondent Robin White lives in San Francisco. The Weather Notebook is supported in part by the National Science Foundation. Thanks today to producer Margaret Landsman.