News that another rockslide sent boulders as big as houses tumbling onto the crucial thoroughfare, closing the westbound lanes indefinitely, was greeted with a sense of familiarity locally. With the surprising regularity of such calamities, it seems many folks have learned to prepare for them and now even expect them.
By mid-morning Tuesday, just hours after a Cocke County mountainside gave way, staff at the Sevierville Chamber of Commerce already had their game plan in place. They spent the hours communicating with member businesses and visitors, giving them what is set to become the fairly upbeat official message.
"Here's the bad news: I-40 Westbound near the TN/NC line is closed due to rockslide today," read a post on the chamber's Facebook page just before 11 a.m. "Here's the GOOD news — the reroute around 1-81 gives you a chance to experience the Sunny Side Trail on your way to the Great Smoky Mountains."
Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) spokesman Mark Nagi recommended the same detour this time as was used in the 2010 slide that closed the entire interstate near the state line for five months. The 53-mile alternate sends motorists up Interstate 26 at Asheville and back down Interstate 81 at Johnson City. As it happens, that track is part of the state's driving heritage tour known as the Sunny Side Trail, which includes stops at various sites of interest. That's a fact chamber Marketing Director Amanda Marr seized on.
"I'm telling people we're looking on the sunny side of things," Marr joked. "We're going to keep pushing the message that we're still here and you can still get here."
Meanwhile, up in Gatlinburg, Ripley's Regional Manager Ryan DeSear said he isn't sure yet if the company will even acknowledge the slide in its advertising, fearing that may associate the destination with the complication.
"We could be texting and changing our digital billboards now to let folks know about that, but I don't know yet if we'll do anything like that," he said. "When you put ads up about the problem, it really just highlights the fact we've got an issue. We'd rather just let the highway signs do the redirecting and let ours bring them here."
Like other business folks in the area, DeSear is hoping visitors do still come from the east, though Ripley's has now built "some catastrophic event that closes a major road," as DeSear puts it, into their planning from year to year, be it slides, snow or paving. The 2010 slide cost the attractions 10 percent of their business, DeSear estimates.
"It's really tough. It hurts. It hurts bad," he said. "I guess the benefit here is that, at least it's not June. I mean, if you're going to have to have a rockslide, obviously we would pick January over a busier month."
That's a sentiment Marr shares.
"Of course, it's never good when we have a rockslide situation that closes down the interstate, but this one is coming in our slowest months," she said. "If it was going to happen, this is probably the time of year when it would have the least impact, since January and February are typically our slower months."
Still, there are plenty of challenges likely ahead, they acknowledge.
While the road was clear of debris from the initial slide within just a couple hours, geotechnical engineers were concerned about a massive shelf of rock that was left hanging in a precarious place, Nagi said. Next to the slide area and adjoining the remainder is a seam that separates it from a different mass of rock, a fact that makes the area more dangerous. As plans were made to remove that potential hazard, an estimate came out of TDOT that the work could be done by Feb. 14.
That would mean the area is short one major entrance for the weekend preceding Valentine's Day with no guarantee all lanes will be open by the time they're predicting now.
"And so it begins," DeSear deadpanned when he was told of the TDOT estimate. "It makes me wonder how they would feel confident just a few hours into this to make such a specific prediction as, 'This will be open by Feb. 14.' I just hope it doesn't keep getting pushed back for months like others we've had."
It seems DeSear's skepticism may have been well-founded. By lunchtime, officials with the Gatlinburg Chamber of Commerce sent out an e-mail quoting a post on the TDOT website that erased the red circle around Feb. 14.
"There is currently no estimate for when I-40 West will reopen," the e-mail and the website read.
Many businesses here rely on the weekends of January and February, slower in comparison to summer though they may be. Particularly important are times like the Presidents Day three-day weekend, which extends the break after Valentine's Day this year and could be lost entirely if the work is prolonged.
"You count on them to sort of carry you through the slow times, since people aren't coming during the week," DeSear said. "That's the money that gets you through this period, so that is worrisome, to lose that. But, that's just part of doing business around here."
dhodges@themountainpress.com
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