Whenever I drive east through the mountains on I-40 to the Tennessee-NC border, I’m always struck by what an engineering marvel it is that we even HAVE interstate roads in that part of the world.
Then, we have yet another rock slide, and I’m reminded of what a precarious balance it is to tame the terrain while trying to ensure safe travel.
It’s not easy.
And the cleanup won’t be easy, either. We’ve seen this before, however – many times. There was the slide in ‘85 and another in ’97 and then the one in the fall of ‘09. I suspect there may be others in the future.
When we get as much rain as we’ve been getting and when those rocks are stacked so precariously along the roadside, something’s bound to give.
I’ve traveled that stretch of road many times over the years, most recently on our summer ’11 family vacation. We also drove I-40 through there when we took a Fall Break trip to N.C. in October ’09. That would’ve been just before that year’s rock slide. In fact, we paused to take a photo not that many miles east of where the current slide occurred.
We saw some amazing sights.
Earlier, when I was in college, I’d frequently head that way as I visited my friend Bill Cooke. He was attending college in South Carolina. I’d always look in awe at the mountains as I’d travel eastward. One time, during my travels, there was a slide blocking the road and I had to detour off the main drag onto some very curvy mountain roads.
On that occasion, a routine five hour excursion morphed into a harrowing seven hour drive.
If you haven’t driven through that area, there are a series of tunnels carved right through the heart of the mountains (kids love it when you honk your horn and you can hear the sounds reverberating). At times, the slides will cover one end of the tunnel or the other.
This latest slide –- in the westbound lanes between mile markers 450 and 451 – is literally just inside the Tennessee border. Other spills have, obviously, occurred on the other side of the state line.
For a while, the state of N.C. had placed lines of wrecked, salvage cars along the side of the highway. I thought that was a creative use of available resources and a bit of positive irony…stacks of crushed cars placed as a barrier to protect other cars from being crushed!
Later, the crashed cars were gone but were replaced by netting. I’m sure it was less of an eyesore and probably less costly but I couldn’t imagine it being nearly as formidable when the boulders came tumbling.
Then again, I wonder if there is any technology or idea we’ve developed that could really contain an avalanche of boulders?
JG
(Source: knoxnews.com)
Originally posted 2/1/2012
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