Massive rockslide could close part of Interstate-40 for three months

Haywood County, N.C.—At 2:00 a.m. Sunday, a woman driving west on Interstate 40 ran into a massive pile of rocks three miles from the border of North Carolina and Tennessee.

State Highway Patrol Sgt. B.D. Tucker said the woman’s airbag deployed when she hit debris from a massive rockslide. 

“She was injured, but it is believed to be non life threatening,“ Tucker said.

For the next seven hours, officers turned drivers around and set up a roadblock—from exit 20 in Waynesville to the rockslide at mile marker three.

The natural disaster sits 2.5 miles east of another historic landslide, Department of Transportation Engineer Rick Stiles said.  In 1997, falling rocks shut down part of I-40 for more than two months.

This time, the cleanup could take even longer. 

State Highway Patrol Trooper Gene Williamson offered three months as “a conservative estimate.“

NC-DOT didn’t waste any time planning their first move.

“The first thing that we need to do is get on top of the area that slid,“ Stiles said.  “In order to do that, we’re going to need to build a road.  That could take two weeks,“ he said.

Once they reach the top (an area Stiles called the cut slope), NC-DOT will start drilling to chip away any other loose rocks.

“You have to start at the top, move the material down as you come down with it, and leave an even slope from the top down to the bottom,“ Stiles said.

Construction workers will hammer boulders (the largest one estimated at 270 tons) into pieces, haul them away, and restore the broken pieces of road below them. 

Tucker said the natural roadblock couldn’t come at a worse time.

“This is just about peak leaf season,“ he said.  “We have a lot of tourism, and that’s obviously going to be affected by this.“

Stiles said, on an average day, 15,000 cars drive through the affected section of I-40. 

For North Carolina drivers headed to Tennessee, officers set up the following detour:

1.  Take I-40 (toward Asheville)
2.  Take I-240 west
3.  Take I-26 west (toward Johnson City)
4.  At exit 8B, take I-81 south
5.  Reconvene with I-40