news-record.com

One of the nation's greatest highways, Interstate 40, runs all the way through North Carolina from Wilmington to the Tennessee state line.

Except, now it doesn't. A massive rock slide in Haywood County leaves the road about three miles short of reaching Tennessee. The highway may be blocked in both directions for months.

That one area, in the Pigeon River Gorge, is the choke point on a highway that stretches for 2,547 miles, traverses eight states and directly links Greensboro to Nashville, Memphis, Little Rock, Oklahoma City, Albuquerque and Flagstaff. I-40 offers North Carolina motorists an open road all the way to California. But what highway engineers construct, natural forces can bury under tons of rock.

It's happened several times over the 40-year history of I-40 in western North Carolina. It's no wonder, given the landscape of mountainous Haywood County, where 13 peaks rise above 6,000 feet. The highway traces the path of the Pigeon River, cutting between steep, rocky walls, passing through a pair of tunnels, and descending to the county's lowest elevation near the state line. Every so often, the mountainsides slide or boulders bounce down to the road below.

The effect this time, AAA Carolinas spokesman Tom Crosby told The Charlotte Observer, will be "disastrous." While that may be too strong a word, the closing of this link between North Carolina and Tennessee forces rerouting of about 20,000 vehicles a day. Half of that is commercial traffic.

The recommended detour, taking I-26 from Asheville to I-81 at Johnson City, Tenn., then I-81 back to I-40 near Knoxville, Tenn., is longer by 53 miles, N.C. Department of Transportation spokesman Jerry Higgins said. That's not a tremendous distance, but it adds to trucking costs and travel times. Heavier traffic also will cause delays.

In hindsight, it probably wasn't the wisest decision more than four decades ago to build a highway through the Pigeon River Gorge, but that's almost ancient history now. More important is that today's highway engineers still have work to do there -- not only clearing and repairing the highway but continuing efforts to stabilize the mountainsides and reduce the risks of future slides.

In North Carolina's populous Piedmont region, more worries are voiced about the aging Yadkin River bridge on I-85 and the impact on travel and commerce if it ever has to close. Its replacement is one of the state's top transportation priorities.

But I-40 in Haywood County is closed, and not for the first time. The latest blockage poses an impediment to interstate commerce. Finding long-term solutions also demands the state's best efforts, especially because it costs millions of dollars to reopen the highway every time this happens.

I-40 is a beautiful highway, and the Haywood County portion is especially scenic. But when the scenery falls across the road, it's not an attraction anymore. It's a hazard.