First phase of Pajaro River levee repair is complete, closing the 400-foot breach.

An initial fix is complete on the span of the Pajaro River levee that breached early on Saturday, March 11, flooding the town of Pajaro and resulting in evacuation orders for the entire community about three miles downstream from the breach.

By 8am on Sunday, March 12—roughly 32 hours after the breach—KW Emerson, under contract with the California Department of Water Resources, was on the scene and getting to work. 

The 100-foot breach quickly widened to 400 feet, and KW crews worked at the site—at roughly river mile 10—on 12-hour shifts, around-the-clock, to fill in the gap. 

View a video of the work in progress here:

As of Tuesday night, March 14, the breach has been filled in with a temporary wall of material. They used boulders, 2- to 4-ton quartzite rock and 3- to 8-inch pieces of granite, according to a statement from Monterey County.

The team spent the first 12 hours preparing the site and developing access routes and stockpiles of material before getting to work on the actual repair around noon on Sunday. But 5pm on Tuesday, March 14, the span was filled in. 

A crew of 24 from KW Emerson was joined by a staff of two each from the Department of Water Resources' engineering division and flood flight specialists, as well as two engineers from the Monterey County Water Resources Agency. They used 39 trucks to haul rock, three excavators and three tracked dump trucks for the work. 

This step marks phase 1 of the job as complete. Next, crews will work on elevating the height to be consistent with the existing levee on either side. Work will continue 24/7 until this emergency repair is complete.

All of this is an emergency repair and not meant to be permanent. A more long-term fix will come later.