![]() I’m not going to lie: It’s been pretty nice.”īy the end of February, most businesses on the south side of the bridge and all but one resort had gone on hiatus. “For the past few months, we’ve had it to ourselves. “If Big Sur ever needed a detox, she got it,” says Jamie Siebold, a special projects manager at Ventana who stayed on to re-build the resort’s campground after a creek washed it away. In the process of trying to knit life back to normal again, the south-siders have created a new kind of Big Sur, one where residents ride bikes and horses on a shockingly empty highway and rely on each other like never before. “It’s made me think a lot about the millions of people who have trouble getting food and supplies right now. “It’s put a lot of things in perspective,” says Molly, noting that while what happened in Big Sur by no means compares to the Mother Nature–led destruction that hit Puerto Rico, Texas, and California Wine Country at about the same time, it has given her a taste of what it’s like to be stranded. And families with children were forced to leave their homes and crash with friends on the north end so kids could attend school. Couples who were once separated by just a few miles suddenly found themselves in long-distance relationships. ![]() Though no official numbers have been tallied yet, early estimates note $300,000 lost every day to the local economy since the “island” formed. Those who remained have spent the better part of 2017 rebuilding the community, its roads, and the hotels. And some of the residents and workers who commuted from coastal communities from the north cut bait. The posh hotels that make up most of the economy here-like Ventana Big Sur and Deetjen’s Big Sur Inn-had to go on sabbatical. With parts of Highway 1 and Nacimiento-Fergusson Road (the only public road that winds through the mountains east to west) closed for a time, helicopters flew in to rescue residents and some lingering vacationers, and food air-drops followed. These past few months have been extreme even by longtime residents’ standards. But every time I hear news of another megastorm or devastating fire striking the area, that fantasy jolts to a halt. Watching the marine layer burn off, I’ve spent mornings here dreaming up plans to make a permanent move. I’ve spent the better part of a decade making the trek from the Bay Area-to camp, tune in and drop out at yoga retreats, or to just immerse myself in the trees and then sneak up to the Big Sur Bakery. ![]() But for those who live here, and visitors like me who come through, it is paradise. In fact, the town has seen regular highway closures every few years since it was completed in 1937. The community, which has sheltered no more than 1,000 permanent residents at a time since artists, ranchers, and solitude seekers began settling here, has also been the stage for gob-smacking fires and slides for most of its modern history. “But when people started running out of their supplies, they got a little bit anxious about when the next meal’s going to come in.”Ĭarved among its dramatic cliffs, booming surf, and thick redwoods, Big Sur has long inspired writers and a stream of visitors taking roadside selfies. There was no traffic, it was quiet, and the wildlife really came out of the backwoods,” says Molly, a petite horse trainer with a singsongy voice. “In the beginning, it was actually fun and sweet. Smaller roads leading into residential areas, like the dirt one-way that the Moffats would normally take from their home down to the main highway, were impassable, thanks to a streak of record-breaking rains and felled trees. ![]() Their 400-or-so neighbors were in much the same position, having already emptied out the local deli and the walk-in fridges of the restaurants where many of them worked. ![]()
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