Traffic on the Interstate 5 drives through a snowy landscape in Lebec, California. Photograph: Myung J Chun/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images ‘The Grapevine’, which connects the metropolis to the state’s agricultural hub, now serves as a window to the effects of climate crisis Wildfires. Snowstorms. Falling boulders. DC Williams has long given up on predicting what the day will bring on Interstate 5 near Tejon Pass, an eight-lane stretch of highway that winds through the steep mountains north of Los Angeles . Williams has been an officer with the California Highway Patrol and worked in this area for 11 years. On a chilly day this spring, he wore a thick black jacket even as he sat inside his Ford Explorer on a bridge overlooking the highway. Below us lay one of the most crucial roads in the state. Traversed by more than 80,000 vehicles every day, from recreational motorists to trucks hauling heavy goods, this 40-mile stretch of Interstate 5, for more than half a century, has been the fastest route linking the bustling metropolis to the flat expanses of the Central valley, the state’s agricultural hub. Californians call this place “the Grapevine”. For most motorists, the handful of gas stations, antique shops and an old army outpost that dot the area are something to get past – a literal mountain to be climbed – on their way to more populated parts of the Golden state. But for those willing to see it, the Grapevine offers something else: a window onto the effects of extreme weather as a changing climate brings more storms, more flames, more landslides and more flooding. The impacts on the highway are inescapable and far-reaching. The thoroughfare is regularly shut down due to snow or ice. Historic rains have led to landslides and wiped out portions […]