County Awarded Caltrans Grant

The State has awarded SacDOT $354,120 to begin looking at better ways to help Rancho Murieta residents safely evacuate during an emergency. In recent years, the Rancho Murieta area has been hit hard by natural disasters that endangered residents.

In 2023, severe flooding closed Jackson Road to the west, Stonehouse Road to the north, and Dillard Road to the south, leaving only a single roadway connection for emergency vehicle access, via Amador County. The 2021 Caldor Fire could have devastated Rancho Murieta a couple of years earlier, had the winds not been blowing east that day. It would have been extremely challenging to evacuate the entire community in a short period of time, given the constraints along Jackson Highway.

These events exposed the vulnerability of the area and highlighted the urgent need for infrastructure planning to enhance life safety.

SacDOT expects to start the study in the summer of 2025. With the grant, SacDOT plans to hire a consultant to study the evacuation/emergency access issues, identify infrastructure improvements and develop a funding and implementation plan. At the end of this study, SacDOT ​a list of projects ready to seek funding in the future. Along with a local funding match, the Caltrans grant will cover the cost of the $400,000 study.