Over the weekend a rainstorm flooded streets and shut down the Westside Parkway, giving road crews a lot of work Monday morning.
Huge ravines were carved into the embankments of Westside Parkway, causing mud and debris to leak onto the shoulder between Allen Road and where the road connects with Stockdale Highway.
Nick Fidler, City of Bakersfield Public Works Director, said this amount of rain is unusual for Bakersfield and this wasn't something they planned for.
"There's significant area, just south of the Westside Parkway of vacant land, the water from that whole area migrated toward the Westside Parkway and just eroded the top of the embankments," Fidler said.
Security Paving was the contractor that constructed the entire Westside Parkway, and the area that eroded was the final phase of the project. Fidler said the quality of the company's work is not to blame but nature is.
Crews are working on scooping up the mud in the shoulder of the freeway and hauling it off. Then, new dirt will be brought in and compacted to keep this erosion from happening again.
Fidler said it's too soon to say when the project will be done but it could be in a week or more.
