Santa Barbara County commuters advised to take detour for Highway 154 closure

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - Highway 154 is closing Wednesday night through Thursday night to complete repair work.

Those commuting through the Santa Ynez Valley and Santa Barbara are advised to take highway 101 or 246.

Commuter Bert Vervoorn said he usually takes Highway 154 as a shortcut. "Sometimes I come fishing at Cachuma and sometimes I come up here [to Buellton]," he said.

Whenever highway 154 is closed, Vervoorn said he takes highway 101 instead.

The highway will close at 7:00 pm Wednesday, and remain closed for 24 hours.

"Caltrans has implemented this closure in order to do additional preparation work for any drainage related activity caused by winter storms, late storms this season," said Jim Shivers, public information officer for Caltrans.

He said Caltrans will also be "finishing up some work as a result of the Cave fire last year."

The Cave Fire burned over three thousand acres in November of last year. Caltrans already completed some repair work in December.

There will be a soft closure at the highway 154-246 roundabout on the Santa Ynez Valley side, and at Highway 154 near the 192 on the Santa Barbara side.

The hard closure will be in place between San Antonio Creek Road and Painted Cave Road.