I-40 Rock Slide

On october 25th there was a massive rock slide in the i-40 corridor. This portion of the the interstate is said to be closed for months. The rock slide occurred at mile marker 2.6 in Haywood County, near the Tennessee state line. This rock slide has caused traffic head aches. People have to travel almost 120 miles out of the way just to get to their destination. There was no one there to witness the slide and even if they were there it was to dark to notice anything until it was to late. There were a couple of trucks that were damaged by the debris on the road but there was no real damage at the time of the rock slide. There was also some minor injuries reported but no deaths or anything serious.

Since the 1970’s there has been a total of 10 rock slides that have caused the i-40 corridor to be shut down for an extended period of time.  Engineers have warned that this could be a possibility due to the type of rock as well as the cold temperatures. The constant freezing and thawing of the rocks causes them to crack and break apart. Also heavy rains in the area have caused the rocks to become dislodged from the substrate causing these rock slides. Engineers have put up fences around the highway to prevent falling rocks from hitting cars driving on the highway. No fence could prevent rocks from getting on the highway this time. This time thousands of tons of rocks fell blocking the northbound side of the highway completely.

I have been thinking about visiting my friend that lives up in that area but i really do not want to drive so far out of the way to get there, and he does not blame me. He lives about 15 miles from the rock slide and says that to go south down i-40 takes him about an hour and a half as opposed to about 30 min. He says that he is cut off from the world to south by having to travel so far to get out of the way. I kinda feel bad for him. I mean i believe that engineers get paid to much to have a catastrophic failure like this.  To this day they are still trying to clean up the highway and restore it to the way it was. I also belive that the economy to the north of the rockslide hasd been effected to. People do not want to travel so far out of the way to get to their favorite lodge so they are going to different parts of the state for their vacation. So this rocks slide was devastating not just to the roads but to the local economy as well.