California Highway 1 reopens after flood and mud slide repair work

Scenic US west-coast route open again following a 14-month, $54m project to fix natural disaster damage that stranded Big Sur community

One of the world's most famous road trips is back in business after back-to-back natural disasters made the "dream drive" along California Highway 1, between San Francisco and Los Angeles, impossible for more than a year. The classic US west-coast route, which traces some of the state's most dramatic scenery, had been off-limits since February 2017.

That month, unprecedented heavy rains sank the Pfeiffer Canyon Bridge, around 150 miles south of San Francisco, leaving an impassable gap in the two-lane highway. Just three months later, a massive landslide 35 miles south of the downed bridge, at Mud Creek, swept another chunk of the road into the sea.