[JOHNKIES]

The crews have to first secure the area to keep another slide from coming down on them while they work. The next step is to blow up the house size boulders and begin using some of the rubble to build a temporary road to get heavy equipment to top of the slide area. This is part of the near and long term slide prevention work. Next they have to get a few thousand yards of broken rock off the road - and in winter by the way - and then haul it off to who knows where? That's a lot of land fill! With the debris cleared, they have to assess the status of the road bed that got smashed and does it need to be rebuilt? Look how close it is to the stream and that part of the road is compromised, they don't a few 18 wheelers in the creek this winter. On the local news they said they would put down temporary asphalt now to patch the road, but they cannot put down a permanent asphalt repair until next summer.

So, even if they get it reopened in January or February, they will still have lane closures next summer.

[wilhelm]

John's got it right. They'll have to cut in some sort of access road to the top of the slide. While doing so, they'll have to make sure that everything else stays in place. Once on top of the pile, they'll start hauling it off. As they bring it down, they may have to put in some rock anchors or something else to keep more if it from coming down both now and in the future. And of course, all of this is being done in winter.

wilhelm

[phg]

Another "shovel ready" project?

Sorry, couldn't resist. I wish them well. It was a major pain trying to get through from western NC to eastern TN before they built that road. It may not have been the best choice of routes, but when they opened it up, it shaved a full 45 min off the drive from Asheville, NC to Knoxville, TN.

[Irish]

The Contractor uses those little itty bitty trucks (20 ton ) and small excavators to move the slide down the mountain.

If using Big trucks (100 ton and up) The material will go faster. Also a rock breaker may break them up faster and easier that blowing the boulders up.

Add some light plants and they could work 24 hours.

The hardest part is to get a road built to the top of the slide.

The rock beds in the Gorge are tilted up pretty good and create slide surfaces that allow these slide to happen.

The Geologist identified them and the highway engineers wanted the perferred route through Hot Springs but the Deomcrats in B County won over the Republicans in Madison County over the location of the road.

The rest is history. A slide every 5 - 7 years and will continue until all the mountain that has been disturbed comes down or it quits raining in NC.

Irish