A 16-mile stretch of Interstate 70 has been shut down momentarily after a rock slide blocked off traffic in western Colorado's Glenwood Canyon, forcing thousands of motorists to become subject to serious delays for at least a month while they wait for repairs. The rock slide that caused the mess occurred Monday evening, just after 9 p.m. directly west of Hanging Lake Tunnel and eight miles east of Glenwood Springs, according to the Canada Journal.
No one was hurt by the landslide and only one vehicle, a semi-truck, was hit. The truck was pulled out of the rubble Tuesday morning with the assistance of Colorado State Patrol crews.
"It could have easily been me," said Chris Boyd, a truck driver trying to get to San Bernardino, Calif. "It's really bad. Those are big boulders. They're not small, little rocks hitting the side of truck, they took the rear end of a semi out."
With all the vehicles cleared, the Colorado Department of Transportation is now faced with the ardous task of clearing the mess in it's entirety and officials are unsure of how long that process will take.
"It could be a long-time closure," said CDOT spokeswoman Amy Ford, according to Fox News.
In the meantime, the CDOT is working to open one lane of eastbound I-70 Thursday afternoon at the earliest. Once open, a pilot car will lead traffic through one way at a time in a service that is expected to last at least a week. Afterward, crews will work to get one lane open in each direction in a process that could take up to a week. The CDOT warned that motorists should expect one lane to be open in either direction for about a month as crews finish repairs.
The alternate route for westbound motorists as repairs are underway is north on CO-131 at Wolcott to Steamboat Springs, west on U.S.-40 to Craig, then south on CO-13 to Rifle and back to I-70, according to ABC's Denver affiliate KMGH-TV. It represents a 203-mile alternate route that will take three hours and 50 minutes to travel, as opposed to the 67-mile/45-minute jouney that it presented prior to the rockslide.
A geohazards team is on site and in a helicopter evaluating the damage. The CDOT said there is a roadway in place, retaining wall, bridge and guardrail that will need to be assessed for damages.
