4/23/2010
Reed Hollinshead
ITD Communication
208-334-8881
reed.hollinshead@itd.idaho.gov
Rocks rain down on Idaho 55; clean up in aftermath of McCall slide nets 4.2 million lbs.
BOISE - About 2,100 tons of rock - 4.2 million
lbs. - were cleared from the roadway and the mountainside near McCall this past
week as crews cleaned up from an April 11 rock slide on Idaho 55.
The
slide, about a mile north of Brundage Road, was about 50-75 feet long, the
Idaho Transportation Department announced, and contained boulders the size of
cars and trucks. The slide also brought down trees and vegetation.
ITD's maintenance leadworker from the
New Meadows shed, Kraig Spelman, was the first to respond April 11.
The northbound lane, closest to the mountainside, was covered by the slide.
Spelman was soon joined by New Meadows Foreman Robin Freeman and a half dozen
other ITD maintenance men attempting to clear the southbound lane and maintain
one-way traffic. They continued to move boulders, as rocks fell down the hill
and landed around them.
Freeman decided to close the highway at 10:40 a.m., before the slide further
compromised the safety of the ITD crew or the public. Several larger rocks and
a tree remained on the hillside, but they were unstable and had to be lowered
to the road via cable - they posed too big a safety risk to leave unattended.
"The crew used a loader and a grader to push the big rocks to a wide spot
in the road to be broken up and hauled away later," explained Freeman.
"The road surface suffered damage; the worst of which was a crater 4-5
feet wide in the northbound lane."
Maintenance crews from New Meadows, Council and Boise cleaned up the debris,
removing seven or eight truckloads of rock from the area. Crews patched the
roadway surface in order to reopen the road by 2:30 p.m., less than four hours
after it was closed.
Earlier this week, crews returned to the scene to break up and remove rock - an
estimated 100 truckloads of rock. Crews finished yesterday (April 22) with the
clean-up effort.
"About 100 tons came down in the slide," estimated ITD
Southwest Idaho Maintenance Manager Dan Bryant. "In addition, another
2,000 tons of rock were removed from the hillside as crews performed mitigation
work to reduce the likelihood of future slides in that area."
"The work this week involved some rock scaling and minor blasting to bring
down rocks that continued to pose a safety concern," Bryant added.
The rock was loaded and hauled by ITD to a storage site for future road
maintenance use, primarily as material for slope and channel stabilization.