See Monterey reports ‘banner year’ despite deaths, wildfire evacuations
A 20-year-old visitor driving a Dodge Challenger struck and killed Brian Roberts, a fixture of the Big Sur community, on Highway 1 during Monterey County’s Car Week in mid-August. The collision came as crowds of sports-car enthusiasts clogged the two-lane road while fire crews worked to contain the Timber fire, which broke out in the highlands east of Big Sur in early August and remained less than 25% contained. A second fire had erupted roughly 30 miles to the south two weeks later and was so inaccessible to firefighters that it had grown larger than the Timber fire and was barely contained at all.
Accounts of the collision differ. Some of Roberts’s friends said he was crossing Highway 1 to admire the sunset; others said he was in the road yelling at cars after he found them blocking the turn-off to Palo Colorado Road, where he lived. A friend, Brendon Shave, arrived on the scene shortly after the accident and found bloodstains smeared across the median line and on the tarmac, along with an 80-foot skid mark and circular burn marks where vehicles appeared to have been doing doughnuts.
The following day, a 20-year-old visitor from outside San Francisco smashed a silver BMW convertible into a tree a few miles north of Big Sur, killing one of his passengers and injuring himself and two other friends. Police said the driver recorded a blood alcohol level of 0.13, well above the legal limit, and they were investigating the death as gross vehicular manslaughter.
The deaths came during a week when fire crews were attempting to set up defensive lines to save buildings and people while Car Week visitors were filmed making high-speed dashes down the straightest stretches of Highway 1, doing doughnuts at traffic intersections and gathering dozens of vehicles for group photographs. Photos and videos posted online showed fire trucks struggling at times to move on a highway clogged with brightly painted sports cars.
“It was a nightmare,” said Kate Daniels, who represents Big Sur on the Monterey County Council and successfully pressed for a parking moratorium at the Bixby Bridge that went into effect last month. “Car Week has been going on for decades and it never used to be like this, but now it’s this hyper-masculine racing culture thing. People kept saying that someone is going to die.”
Roberts had spent many of the previous days railing against the behavior of Car Week attendees, according to his friends. He worked as a maintenance worker and gardener at the Alila Ventana resort and had also helped with firefighting efforts in the final weeks of his life. He enjoyed a wide circle of friends across Big Sur and the Monterey peninsula.
The disruptions began at the beginning of the year with the long-awaited reopening of Highway 1, a two-lane road that provides the only vehicle access to Big Sur from the Monterey peninsula in the north to Cambria in the south. For three years, the route had been cut in two by extensive repair work in the wake of heavy landslides. The region lost about 20% of its tourists over that time, at a cost of millions of dollars a month. Hearst Castle, on the southern end of the peninsula, lost as many as 40%.
The reopening immediately caused visitor numbers to shoot back up, but residents and local officials noticed that along with the nature lovers and hikers came many more tourists interested almost exclusively in snapping selfies at a handful of well-advertised locations before moving swiftly on. Such visitors, according to local media coverage, stopped in the middle of the road to take pictures at the spectacular, arched Bixby Bridge, snarling traffic for miles in each direction, and trampled plants, camped illegally and tossed their trash. In July, a banner appeared on the Bixby Bridge reading: “Overtourism is killing Big Sur.”
“Visitor behavior has changed so much,” Daniels said. “This is one of the most beautiful places you’ve ever seen, yet people have decided their goal is to take a picture of themselves on a bridge … It’s really difficult and dangerous, and that road cannot handle it.”
The tourist industry accounts for about 90% of the local economy, so visitors are certainly welcome. But the events of the summer have renewed questions about how many is too many. Some of Car Week’s roughly 100,000 visitors repurposed the Big Sur coastline as a playground for their souped-up coupes and convertibles; the previous year they had done much the same, but now the Timber fire was raging, every change in wind carried the smell of burning forest and the community had no patience for it.
Eleven days after Roberts’s death, See Monterey put out a statement proclaiming “a banner year,” with hotel revenue up, visitor spending exceeding $100 million and more than $4 million raised for charity. The organization had repeatedly urged visitors to Big Sur to stick to the speed limit and park legally and put out one statement headlined: “Big Sur Deserves Big Respect.”
“The community felt disrespected because the land was on fire,” said Lindsey Kirk, a friend of Roberts’s from the San Francisco Bay Area who spends as much time as she can spare in Big Sur. “It’s crazy that the fire services couldn’t get through because of all the cars they brought in.”
Shave, who runs a hair salon in Carmel, a 20-minute drive from where Roberts died, blamed authorities in Monterey County who, he said, used the beauty of Big Sur as a draw for big events — marathons and golf tournaments as well as the annual car show — but did little to look out for its residents. “People live here,” he said, “to get away from all the stuff that Monterey County keeps sending our way.”
Days after the last Lamborghinis and Porsches left town, a flare-up in the Timber fire sent cascades of sparks and ash down from Mount Manuel and prompted what many Big Sur residents felt should have happened much sooner: a comprehensive closure of Highway 1 encompassing most of the hotels and restaurants and some of the most heavily visited spots, including Pfeiffer Beach and McWay Falls. Authorities gave residents 24 hours either to stock up on essentials or leave town.
When the community shuts down, many of the hourly workers at the restaurants and hotels lose their source of income. If the fires force them to evacuate — dozens of them are housed by the resorts and campsites that employ them — their problems are compounded by unexpected housing and other expenses. Ryne Leuzinger, board chair of the Community Association of Big Sur, said his organization had been cutting $300 checks to help the neediest community members get by, and another group, the Big Sur Big Share, had spent the last several weeks making sure that people temporarily without an income had enough to eat.
Big Sur prides itself on its communal spirit, which was on vivid display the night before the closure, when 200 mourners crowded onto the back patio of the River Inn resort to pay homage to Roberts’s life. Speakers recalled how he would park a motorbike in the same spot at the River Inn, one of his favorite haunts, and spend his nights smoking and drinking rum and Cokes. “He had terrible taste in cocktails,” said Ivy La Velle, who described herself as his best friend, laughing afterwards. “It wasn’t even good rum.” Roberts’s parents, who had driven out from the Midwest, did not pay for anything because his friends raised money to cover their lodging, meals, funeral expenses and a $1,200 bill incurred when police towed his parked truck after the fatal accident.
The next day, mourners gathered at the makeshift memorial on the side of Highway 1 near the spot where Roberts was hit. Kirk laid lapis stones and a bouquet at a shrine that also featured a pack of American Spirit cigarettes, Roberts’s favorite brand, and an empty bottle of Sailor Jerry rum. “He was always around for anyone who needed anything,” she said. “He was a wonderful guy.”
Sarah Sweeney, who in less uncertain times sells sushi from a truck, said Roberts embodied a certain Big Sur ethos now under threat, because he was passionate about a community that rejects the ordinary rhythms of modern life and, perhaps, wants to run away from them. “I call this place Neverland,” she said, “and we’re all Peter Pan. Or the lost boys. There are a lot of lost boys around here.”