Rampant floodwaters could close Highway 37 after breaching levee, damaging railway

Authorities are monitoring rising floodwaters near the key North Bay roadway after a storm-related levee breach.|

The three-day storm that dumped several inches of rain on the North Bay led to a breach of a levee Thursday morning along Highway 37 in Novato, leaving road crews, public safety officials and motorists scrambling to assess the potential impact to the critical regional roadway.

The highway still was open as of rush hour Thursday evening, but Caltrans and CHP were closely watching how high the water might rise, as high tide from San Pablo Bay rolled in to where Novato Creek meets Highway 37. By the early evening, the accumulating water had encroached upon the westbound lanes from the north side of the highway and caused the closure of the westbound slow lane between Atherton Avenue and Novato Creek.

“We are actively preparing for a closure,” CHP Officer Andrew Barclay said. “Our hope is obviously we don’t need it. But it’s to such a degree that everyone is getting ready and ready to do it.”

He added that a break in the rain during the afternoon helped significantly and the good news - if there was any - was the water initially appeared only to affect the reverse commute motorists, and not the typical evening bumper-to-bumper eastbound lanes.

The morning levee breach washed out railroad tracks along the SMART right of way when the rain-swollen Novato Creek rushed into a 600-acre cattle field on the south side of the highway. The tracks are used only for freight hauling by the Northwestern Pacific Railroad, a SMART spokeswoman confirmed.

Doug Bosco, co-owner of NWP Co. - and an investor in Sonoma Media Investments, which owns The Press Democrat - said damage from large rainstorms tends to happen in the area of track once every couple of years. He said the wash out from the breached levee was likely to delay a handful of scheduled deliveries, but crews were already out evaluating repairs that should be finished within two weeks.

“These kinds of calamities aren’t any fun,” Bosco said. “The railroad business, though, is nothing if it isn’t problems. But we’re sort of used to dealing with them. We’re on top of it and doing it as we speak.”

Whether the transportation woes would extend to the roadway was the greater concern for transportation authorities. Officials with the Marin County Flood Control and Water District were also on hand to see what might be done to hold the rising water at bay.

“We’re still at the mercy of any water that comes off the hills,” Barclay said. “As the high tide comes in this evening, the obvious concern is it will push these (levels) even higher and into the roadway. We’ll keep 37 open as long as we possibly can while keeping safety in mind, but if at any point water rises to a level that encroaches and we determine safety to be a factor, we will implement a closure.”

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin Fixler at 707-521-5336 or kevin.fixler@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @kfixler.

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