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Interstate 40 in western North Carolina could be closed for months after a rockslide buried the interstate under a mountain of rubble early Sunday morning.
The highway is one of the state's key trucking routes, and one of the chief roads used by tourists and others traveling to the mountains, Tennessee and beyond.
It's not the first time that stretch of road, which runs through the steep Pigeon River gorge, has had trouble. In 1997, a large rockslide in the same area closed I-40 from July through September.
Sunday's huge slide was reported about 2 a.m. at mile marker 2.6, about 50 miles west of Asheville near the Tennessee border.
One woman driving on I-40 struck some rocks before the road was shut down, according to N.C. Highway Patrol Trooper Gene Williamson. She was taken to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
The site is about 180 miles west of Charlotte.
He said the roadway is covered by a gigantic mound of debris, from pebbles up to house-sized boulders. The pile is 40 to 50 feet high, Williamson estimated, and hundreds of feet long.
"How do you describe something like that? Just massive amounts of rock and debris covering the roadway," Williamson said.
Officials are evaluating how best to tackle the debris. A contractor has been hired for the cleanup, officials said. Crews will probably have to start from the top of the pile and clear the road piece by piece.
"We need to make sure it's 100 percent safe before we let anyone go through there," DOT spokesman Jerry Higgins said. About 19,000 motorists use that stretch every day.
Williamson believes the cleanup will take months. "I would say more months than weeks," he said. "You're definitely looking at after the first of the year."
Truckers call the clogged area "The Gorge."
It is a major route for Carolinas trucking companies moving freight to western states, said Gene Stegall of T.G. Stegall Trucking Co., a nationwide trucking firm based in Charlotte. Most Carolinas truckers and many in the mid-Atlantic states use I-40 to cart freight to Western states.
"A long shutdown will have a huge impact on trucking companies," Stegall said. "If we've got to divert our routes, that's going to add time and fuel. Most of us have rates in place. Any extra miles adds to the bottom line.
"Just going to see Grandma in Knoxville for the holidays is going to be a problem."
Tom Crosby, a spokesman for AAA Carolinas, said he expects serious travel problems during the holidays.
"It's going to have a disastrous effect," he said. "It's going to create very long backups (as) there's no good way across those mountains besides I-40.
"It was extremely slow and torturous last time it happened, and I don't think anything's improved," said Crosby.
The cause of the rockslide is still under investigation, although Williamson said he suspects heavy rain in the region over the last few weeks may have contributed.
Because that gorge has been problematic in the past, the DOT will evaluate long-term plans to stabilize its walls. Still, there are never guarantees in such terrain, said Higgins.
"There are pretty steep walls out there," he said. "Sometimes, you're at the mercy of nature."
