I-40 Rockslide

No wonder it took so long:

The N.C. Department of Transportation has launched an internal investigation into allegations of fraud involving the department and contractors paid to handle maintenance at the Interstate 40 rock slide site. The letter alleges that contractors were paid for idled equipment, that trucks hauled away asphalt scraps for use on private jobs and that state-issued credit cards were used improperly.

As reported by Vicki Hyatt, editor of The Mountaineer, the Pigeon River Gorge section of I-40 has and will continue to be a rockslide-hazardous corridor. The following is a reprint of her November 3, 2009 article “I-40: A troubled history.”

Rock slides that halt travel between Haywood and Newport, Tenn., have plagued Interstate 40 since it first opened in October 1968. Just four months after the dedication of the route, known early on as the Pigeon River Road, occurred in February 1969, when a slide blocked traffic on all four lanes of the route.

The area near the access road to Waterville Dam was grouted, rock was drilled, dynamited and then filled with liquid cement to halt the earth movement. It was the first of many actions that would be taken through the years to stabilize an area engineers had long warned would pose problems in the future.

Western North Carolina: I-40 Pigeon River Gorge Rockslides— July 1997 /October 2009 —NCGS & Asheville Citizen-Times