Janice Dickenson credited a “community effort” in responding to the emergency, including Chuck Teague, “who owns a concrete plant…he said to cut the bolt and take what we need. Tom Staben is donating truckloads of fill, and he and Dean Lindsey have been doing a great job.” Dickenson noted that “Santa Paula Airport was created by flood…I guess the river giveth and the river taketh away.”Pilot Pat Quinn credited the sharp eye of Santa Paula Fire Captain Steve Lazenby for first observing that the massive damage was occurring and then getting on the telephone and “mustering the troops…he saved our butts.”Gallegly said that options are complicated by the airport’s status as a privately owned entity. But the airport has also served as a staging area in times of fire and other emergencies, Gallegly noted. “We’ll have to see what the options are,” ranging from using Navy Seabees for reconstruction for training and asking Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to extend a January declaration of disaster to cover the airport damage. Gallegly said that the Natural Resources Conservation Service might also be utilized, as well as other government agency resources.Staben briefed Gallegly about the shoring-up efforts, noting that crews had worked all night transporting fill material, dumping near the river bank and then pushing over the edge in an effort to stem the massive erosion. “We were losing about seven-feet every ten minutes” at one point, Staben – who donated the first 20 loads - noted.“I have to get questions so I can get answers and try to look at all the angles, it’s unique,” Gallegly said later. “Calls already have been placed and more will be this afternoon” to see what resources are available to help the airport. “This is a special place.”“We’re fighting like hell to preserve what we’ve got,” Bruce Dickenson told Gallegly.Rowena Mason, president of the Santa Paula Airport Association, said that the night shift of bank shoring efforts was discontinued due to the pause in the storm. “We’re trying to find concrete and rock, but we’re feeling more optimistic about getting help. We’re glad Elton was here and willing to help. I like the Seabees idea, but I wish they’d hurry up.”
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Work crews dump rock and dirt along the runway at Santa Paula Airport (left photo) trying to stop the Santa Clara River from eroding more of the runway. The river began to rage Monday, first threatening the east end of the airport and then the west end took a direct hit. |
Santa Paula Airport takes direct hit from Santa Clara River
February 25, 2005
Santa Paula Airport runway closed
Santa Paula News
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula TimesSanta Paula Airport was under siege as the muddy waters of the raging Santa Clara River continued to punch out foot after foot of bank, and a large swath of the runway’s straight white line that guided generations of pilots broke off and fell into the water. The historic airport was closed on Tuesday during the latest storm that created a days-long emergency effort to shore up the crumbling banks of the Santa Clara River.Rep. Elton Gallegly, a pilot and airport visitor for more than three decades, visited the airport on Wednesday and pledged to help the stricken airport, world famous for its collection of antique aircraft and the aviators who have flown there. Gallegly said he was overwhelmed by the amount of damage.“It is beyond the average person’s comprehension…this is unbelievable,” he said to City Councilman Ray Luna, who has spent days at the airport surveying the scene. “Every hangar has its own story,” noted Gallegly. “It’s amazing what the power of water will do” in such a short time period.The problems first started in January when a destructive five-day storm eroded the riverbank along a south side portion of the airport’s runway to the asphalt where over 150 planes take off and land on a typical day. The river receded Wednesday, but not before it took a 150-foot-deep slice out of the side and into the center of the airport’s only runway. About one-third of the 2,650-foot runway was lost. The problems started early in the week when rains on Monday started eroding the eastern end of the airport.“It’s certainly a concern on our part,” said SheetCraft Metal owner Bill Mensing, as the waters chewed away the bank only feet from his hangar. Mensing, whose company has been at the airport for three decades, moved all records and office equipment and most equipment from the aluminum building before bank-shoring efforts paid off, stopping the water just a few feet from the rear of the building which was later yellow-tagged.But damage continued to the west where the waters were “cutting into the bank, probably at a rate of a foot a minute,” said Santa Paula Building & Safety Director Steve Stuart, as he and other city and airport officials grimly surveyed the scene on Tuesday.Public Works Director/City Engineer Cliff Finley noted that water flow had exceeded 70,000 cubic feet per second during the night, but had slowed to about 40,000 cfs.Tom Staben, president of T.A. Staben, Inc., a general engineering contractor, worked the mid-portion of the bank while Dean Lindsey of Lindsey Excavating & Grading concentrated on the east end of the crumbling runway. “We had about 30 feet or so from the edge,” noted pilot Pete Mason. “Now it is the edge….”Bruce Dickenson had been at the airport throughout the night, said Janice Dickenson Tuesday morning. “He came home at 5 a.m. and the phone rang an hour later” summoning the airport director, whose grandfather Ralph Dickenson was a founder when the airport opened in 1930.
