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Crews act fast to restore roadway after second
major slide |
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April 8, 2017 |
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| Views of
Highway 95 from north and south ends of
Friday's slide, courtesy TraffiCorps |
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By Mike Weland
Editor
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| View from
the top of the slide looking down onto
Highway 95, courtesy Cheryl Stockdale. |
Friday afternoon fell cloudy and gray, and by
2:09 p.m., rumbles of thunder could be heard
throughout Boundary County, followed by often
heavy rain. Idaho Transportation Department
crews and TraffiCorps flaggers looked on with
trepidation just moments later as the hill
they've been fighting with since March 21came
down in a rush once again at 2:17 p.m.
Once again, both lanes of Highway 95 were
covered in mud several feet deep just south of
Mountain Meadows Road near Naples, completely
shutting down the highway that has only had a
single lane open since the initial slide almost
three weeks ago.
Fortunately no one, road personnel or passing
motorists, were caught in the slide, and while
traffic backed up more than a mile and a half
rather quickly, county road and bridge personnel
and sheriff's deputies were able to soon get
commercial vehicles diverted around the slide
via Highway 2 at Three Mile Junction and Highway
200 in Bonner County, and get the backed up
traffic moving once again on Deep Creek Loop at
Naples to Lookout View Road just south of where
Deep Creek Loop was closed due to flood and
sloughing damage March 22.
It was by no means an ideal route, just the only
route passable by the heavy rigs and regular
traffic that were caught up when the slide hit.
There were reports of rigs and cars getting
stuck; several drivers reported how
white-knuckle the twisting, narrow Lookout View
Road was to traverse, espicially in those places
where the side f the road drops straight down,
but, in spite of a couple reports of road rage
as some motorists lost patience, no accidents
were reported and no one was hurt.
Almost before the slide stopped moving, local
heavy-equipment contractors, the same ones
called in after the first slide, were called up
and moving. The phone rang here, a worker at the
sign shop next door to Wink Inc. on Highway 2.
"What's going on?" he asked. "The folks over at
Wink took off like it was pretty important, so I
figured something must have come apart again."
Crews from Fitch Construction and Stippich
Crushing and Hauling were just as quick to
respond, and amazingly, by about 8 p.m., ITD
officials were able to release a two or three
hour estimate on getting the southbound lane
open again to alternating traffic, and then work
crews beat that time, getting the lane reopened
at 9:32 p.m., just a bit over seven hours after
the hill let go.
We at NewsBF would like to extend our thanks to
all of you who turned to our website and
Facebook page for the most reliable and accurate
source of minute-by-minute local news delivered
(to those of you who knew where to look) in time
to make a difference. Your trust is our most
treasured asset. |
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