Commute from Upper Ojai to Santa Paula takes over 3 hours
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula News
Published: January 28, 2005
Doug Dullenkopf, owner of the Screaming Eagle at Santa Paula Airport, usually has a 15- to 20-minute commute from his Upper Ojai home driving on the scenic Highway 150.
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula Times
Doug Dullenkopf, owner of the Screaming Eagle at Santa Paula Airport, usually has a 15- to 20-minute commute from his Upper Ojai home driving on the scenic Highway 150. After the devastating five-day rainstorm, Dullenkopf’s commute stretched out to over three hours when Highway 150 was shut down and a portion of Highway 33 reduced to one lane after major ground erosion was found under Creek Road that created three-foot cracks in the pavement.
Dullenkopf is among thousands of area residents who were first stranded by the storms and now find that getting in and out of Ojai has become a long, arduous chore. “The worst time I had was the evenings going home,” when the trip over alternate Highway 33 – a 40 mile commute - took about three hours and 20 minutes, said Dullenkopf. Creek Road had one lane open and Caltrans workers have been letting 60 cars through each way at a time. Late last week another lane was open and the trip to Santa Paula took Dullenkopf “only an hour or so….”
Dullenkopf noted that Ojai has “become an island. I flew over Highway 150 and can see where the Thomas Aquinas College professors are parking to hike in” to the secluded campus.
A portion of Highway 150 sunk 70 feet after the raging Santa Paula Creek destroyed the area below the roadway. That portion of the highway – inaccessible in past years due to creek bank damage - will not be fixed for months, and Caltrans is not offering an estimated completion date.
The opening of Thomas Aquinas College was delayed for a week during the storm, which dumped record rain on the Santa Paula area from January 6 through January 10. Professors now must park about a mile from the campus and hike 20 minutes to reach the school.
Residents of Camp Bartlett and the surrounding area were also stranded for days during and after the storms. Highway 33 from Fairview Road, four miles north of Ojai, to Lockwood Valley Road, is closed and there is no estimated date of reopening. A giant mudslide has closed Santa Ana Road – all the way to the Santa Barbara County line - which will take months to remove.
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