Roads built beside a river sit on ground that floodwater can reshape. In such a case, where the easement road is the only legal way to reach the adjacent land from the other end, all it takes is just one flood and the landowner will find themselves with legal access but no real access whatsoever. It falls to the courts to decide how to go ahead with that road and at whose cost. The problem is especially relevant for rural land with no connection to a public road, where the only access runs through an easement across a neighbor’s property. The owner of the land whose burden is to bear the easement will want the easement as narrow as possible, while the one with the easement would want a sturdy way through. A California appellate court addressed that issue after two floods destroyed the access road to a specific property.
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