Indian Canyon Drive in Palm Springs may be closed for 2 months from Tropical Storm Hilary

The Coachella Valley could be left for two months without one of the main arteries connecting Palm Springs with Interstate 10 and points north, Palm Springs officials said Thursday as they showed the media the damage to Indian Canyon Drive.

They don't yet know how seriously Gene Autry Trail was damaged or how long it will take to repair, though a city spokesperson said it should open sooner than Indian Canyon Drive.

City Engineer Joel Montalvo said a section of Indian Canyon Drive, which is crucial because it is the fastest route from Desert Hot Springs to Desert Regional Medical Center, is buried under four feet of mud. A portion of the road has also washed away entirely.

“It’s absolutely impassable,” City Councilmember Lisa Middleton said. “It’s not even recognizable to many of us.”

Montalvo said during a press conference Thursday at the site that it will likely take one to two months to rebuild and reopen the stretch, which washed away when Tropical Storm Hilary dumped more than 3 inches of rain across the Coachella Valley earlier this week.

The repairs will require clearing the mud and then reconstructing the top three or four feet of road structure that washed away.

Utility companies will also have to come in and repair their lines that were buried beneath the road. Very rough estimates suggest the repair to Indian Canyon Drive will cost about half a million dollars, Montalvo said.

“We’re trying to beat that schedule,” said Montalvo of the one- to two-month timeline.

Montalvo also said he does not yet know how long it will take to reopen Gene Autry Trail through the Whitewater Wash, although Middleton said that process will likely take days if not weeks.

“Right now, we’re still assessing because it's still under mud,” Montalvo said. “We are hoping it's better, but we don’t really know. Under the mud it could’ve washed away too.”

Officials call for state funding of bridges

The gathered officials, which also included the mayors of Desert Hot Springs and La Quinta, said the damage and resulting closures show the need for bridges to be constructed on both Indian Canyon Drive and Gene Autry Trail at the wash to reduce both the likelihood of damage to the roads and the need for closures.

In July, the Coachella Valley Association of Governments applied for a $50 million state grant to pay for most of the $74.9 million in improvements it hopes to make on Indian Canyon Drive, including two pre-fabricated bridges, wildlife undercrossings and two miles of sand fencing. CVAG should find out late this year whether it gets the state funding.

Wind and flooding-related closures of the roads through the wash have been a problem going back decades, several officials noted. However, the problem has been particularly acute this year, with CVAG Executive Director Tom Kirk saying the road had already been closed on 38 days this year prior to the lengthy closure the storm will now impose.

“It seems like Groundhog Day,” said Desert Hot Springs Mayor Scott Matas.

Middleton said that while the constant closures present a significant inconvenience, cutting off thousands of people from the most direct route to the region's closest Level 1 trauma center is much worse than that.

“You’re looking at 15-, 30- and 45-minute delays to get to the hospital at a time when frequently every minute counts,” she said. “So, we are working together on this, and we won’t stop until we get the funding to make sure this bridge is in place.”

Hospital was cut off during storm

While the road closures mean accessing the hospital from the north is frequently a challenge, its CEO, Michele Finney, said Hilary temporarily cut off access to the hospital from outside the city entirely. She said that’s what happened Sunday when the closure or flooding of all roads leading out of the city meant no one could drive into it for a time while helicopters were also unable to fly patients in.

“We were geographically isolated from both the ground and air,” she said.

Even after some roads within the valley reopened, Finney said the hospital continued to face challenges because the closure of a portion of Interstate 10 left about 40% of the hospital’s staff unable to get to it until the freeway reopened.She added that the hospital made it through “without any adverse impacts to patient care” thanks to a “yeoman’s efforts” that relied largely on the herculean efforts of the hospital’s own staff.

“They stayed at local hotels, they stayed on cots that we set up, they ate at the hospital, they worked double shifts taking just a couple of hours of rest in between,” she said, noting that the experience shows the need for bridges that can ensure access to the hospital.

During the news conference, a representative of Riverside County Supervisor V. Manuel Perez said that while the roads are closed, it will remain important for drivers to use alternate roads and not drive around the barricades.

Porsche got stuck in mud before conference

About 20 minutes before the press conference was set to begin at the Indian Canyon Drive damage site, a Porsche heading north through the closure site got stuck in the mud.

Its driver, who declined to provide his name to The Desert Sun, said he had been driving to the interstate to get his wife to Eisenhower Hospital in Rancho Mirage. He said he had decided to proceed into the closure area because it appeared to now be open on the south side.

During the press conference, a representative of Assemblyman Greg Wallis said Wallis was up at the state Capitol now fighting for the funds need to repair roads in the Coachella Valley and make them more resilient.

Palm Springs Councilmember Christy Holstege, who is again running against Wallis for state assembly, also said during the conference that the state needs to step up and fund the project because neither individual cities or CVAG have the money to do so on their own.

“The Coachella Valley is already disinvested when it comes to our share of state and federal funding for infrastructure projects,” she said, before noting that cities have long been working together through CVAG to find the funding.

Kirk, the CVAG leader, also noted that valley cities have already spent millions to design the bridges and now are just looking for state help to build them. Like Matas, he referenced the film “Groundhog Day,” in which he said Bill Murray's character "wakes up and makes the same mistakes day after day."

“We've been doing that for decades on Indian Canyon,” he said. “We need to wake up and make it the next day by solving this problem permanently.”

Paul Albani-Burgio covers breaking news and the City of Palm Springs. Follow him on Twitter at @albaniburgiop and via email at paul.albani-burgio@desertsun.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Fixing Indian Canyon Drive in Palm Springs may take months post-Hilary