Caltrans working non-stop to open section of Hwy 1 near Muir Woods

MUIR WOODS, Calif. (KGO) -- Caltrans is hard at work repairing part Highway 1 that connects Mill Valley to the Marin County Coast, a section that's been closed since the big Bay Area storm last month.

Contractors are working around the clock all in hopes of reopening the road by next month.

"We're working seven days a week from dawn 'til dusk, 16 hour days," Bob Haus, Caltrans spokesman said.

"It wasn't as if this was the result of several days of rain. This happened all at once," Haus added.

Engineers are calling the damage a slipout, where the dirt slips out from under the road.

"Think of an Oreo cookie with three quarters of the filling gone, that's what happened here," Bob Haus, Caltrans spokesman said. "All the soil beneath the roadway washed away, so we had the pavement above and nothing beneath it."

Engineers call these beams soldier piles, because they line up and stand at attention.

A view from SKY7 HD shows the massive wooden wall they'll be holding up, a wall that'll prevent this from happening again.

Caltrans has done this before, and they know they'll do it again.

"Any time you have a coastal highway, especially a mountainous coastal highway, you're going to have a lot of problems," Haus said.

No one knows that better than the innkeepers at the Pelican Inn.

"We often have little washouts and then we occasionally have big washouts," innkeeper Laraine Miller said.

But none as big as this and it's been a headache.

"(We get) lots of phone calls asking you know, are we still open, can we still get here, do I still have a reservation?" Miller added.

Guests eventually find their way to the hotel on the one remaining road, but Muir Woods Road is in bad shape.

"It's been almost 10 years that it's been single lane in some places," Miller said.

Some delivery trucks can't make it and it's hardly ideal for fire trucks, which is why Caltrans is in such a hurry.

"This is a lifeline for the coastal communities," Haus said.