Hollywood loves their disaster films.

Earthquakes, tidal waves, hurricanes, climate change and even alien encounters all seem to carry story lines that carry a simple recipe for box office success.

Of course, dealing with just one of these crises in the real world can be catastrophic (let’s just go along with there are UFOs for this article’s sake) and don’t always have a happy ending like the movies.

The Santa Clarita Valley has had it’s own challenges in the past year that have kept surprising us.

First, the landslide coming off of Vasquez Canyon not only completed crumbled the road, but also continued making news because of its severe nature.

Vasquez Canyon

 

Then this past summer, the Sand Fire ravaged the valley’s southern edge still closing roads leading up to Bear Divide.

Yesterday, I just got news from Nina Moskol of the Santa Clarita Valley Bicycle Coalition that a large portion of Bouquet Canyon will be closed all the way through winter.

The California Highway Patrol issued this statement on Halloween that this closure is to protect from flooding during storm season which extends all the way until April 15th of next year.

At least tax day will bring a new type of freedom.

If you’re unfamiliar with Bouquet Canyon, this is another popular road frequented by cyclists which I covered last week riding the Gran Fondo Santa Clarita.

It’s a great road to ride that takes you through a couple of different landscapes as you climb.

This is also a road that will affect commuters as a number of people driving from the Leona Valley choose to cut through.

When you have so few roads to ride on to begin with and then a solid portion of them are closed, this can be extremely frustrating as a cyclist just looking for an escape.

It’s odd that now that we’re a year removed from the “apocalyptic devastation” that was supposed to come from El Nino, that now we’re taking flood related issues more seriously.

Note to cyclists: start buying lasers. We’ll be dealing with the alien incursion next!