A section of winding Highway 116 slid into the Russian River in Sonoma County on Monday, and the washout near Monte Rio is only expected to grow as the rain-soaked banks of the river continue to be saturated and unstable.
The washout began around 4 pm Monday, with a 75- to 100-foot section of the eastern lane of Highway 116 collapsing and taking trees and a piece of guardrail with it, just west of Monte Rio — about five miles past Guerneville if you were heading to the coast. As the Press Democrat reports, the earth beneath the roadway was “likely loosened by the surging waterway and runoff from the recent storms,” with the Russian River cresting Tuesday at just two feet below flood stage — a 30-foot rise since New Year’s Eve.
A photo posted by Caltrans early Tuesday showed the roadway still mostly intact up to the white line at the egde of the eastbound lane, but subsequent photos published by the Press Democrat showed the washout growing and encroaching on more of the lane. One-way traffic is proceeding through the area in the westbound lane…