Ordinarily, a road repair that takes six months to complete is nothing to write home about. But there was nothing ordinary about the repairs to Interstate 40 in the Pigeon River Gorge.
Back in late October a rockslide poured down from the gorge's steep hillsides onto the interstate in far western North Carolina, just east of the Tennessee line. The slide blocked all four travel lanes. Some boulders in the debris field were truck-size.
First things first: The road is heavily used, and it was lucky indeed that no one was killed in the rockslide (which had the good grace to come down at 2 a.m.).
That was about the only piece of good fortune as the six-month cleanup process, overseen by the state DOT, got under way.
The problem wasn't just the rocks that fell; it was the rocks that didn't. To clear the way for debris removal on the roadway, workers had to scramble up the steep hillside and push down loose rocks. Then they had to secure the rocks that remained using steel mesh and anchor bolts.
Then winter set in, and it was a bad one, cold and snowy. About three miles away, more rocks came down on the road; they had to be cleared too.
I-40 drivers, meanwhile, had to detour well around the closed segment, losing them time and losing profits for interstate-dependent businesses in the area. (Speaking of money, federal highway funds will cover the $13 million or so in expenses that the DOT incurred.)
Now the route is open again, although some lane restrictions will remain for weeks. Praise be - no workers lost their lives in this brutally hard, dangerous endeavor. Now we can all keep our fingers crossed that the rocks along the Pigeon River Gorge will stay where they belong - until gravity gets the better of them again.
