{"id":20643,"date":"2019-12-19T11:30:01","date_gmt":"2019-12-19T18:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skyhinews.com\/?p=62175"},"modified":"2019-12-19T11:30:01","modified_gmt":"2019-12-19T18:30:01","slug":"a-look-behind-the-scenes-of-cdots-rockfall-mitigation-along-i-70-with-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/local-news\/a-look-behind-the-scenes-of-cdots-rockfall-mitigation-along-i-70-with-video\/","title":{"rendered":"A look behind the scenes of CDOT\u2019s rockfall mitigation along I-70 (with video)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
The Colorado Department of Transportation blasts a rock face as part of rockfall mitigation work Dec. 18 near Idaho Springs.<\/strong>
Sawyer D\u2019Argonne \/ sdargonne@summitdaily.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

IDAHO SPRINGS \u2014 The Colorado Department of Transportation made a little noise on the mountains overlooking Interstate 70 on Wednesday, blasting a considerable portion of the rock face onto the roadway as part of the department\u2019s ongoing rockslide mitigation work.  <\/p>\n

Both directions of I-70 were closed Wednesday morning near Idaho Springs as engineers, blasters and maintenance crews with CDOT oversaw the process, an emergency project that jumped to the top of the department\u2019s priority list following a pair of rockslides in the area in late November.  <\/p>\n

\u201cOn the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, we had all that heavy, wet snow that got this slide moving,\u201d said Jeff Hampton, a project engineer for the I-70 Westbound auxiliary lane project<\/a>, who oversaw the blasting operation Wednesday. \u201cOur geohazard group identified that we needed to get up there and do a blast. But it was the slide after Thanksgiving that caught everyone by surprise. Normally these (rock faces) don\u2019t let go again that fast\u2026<\/p>\n

The Colorado Department of Transportation blasts a section of rock hanging over Interstate 70 on Wednesday, Dec. 18, near Idaho Springs.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cCDOT\u2019s chief engineer and the executive director have both been involved in this process and said this needs to happen before the holidays. It was really close to Christmas, and we really didn\u2019t want to impact those local communities. But from a safety perspective, we needed to make this happen, so that we don\u2019t have a huge influx of traffic, and then have something happen that we can\u2019t control.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the November rockslides, both of which unexpectedly closed I-70 near Idaho Springs, a group of geohazard specialists with CDOT were sent to inspect the area for any other potentially troublesome features in the geography that could pose safety risks down the line.<\/p>\n

The team discovered a tension crack \u2014 meaning it was beginning to tear away from the hillside \u2014 in the rock face at the same site as the last slide. And because the rock was hanging out over other parts of the hill, any slide potentially could have meant big trouble for the roadway and anyone on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s clearly hanging out above other rocks, so if it were to slide, it would have come all the way down,\u201d Hampton said. \u201cThat\u2019s a big safety issue. So rather than letting Mother Nature decide when she wants to bring it down, we\u2019re going to give it a push.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the project\u2019s urgency among state officials, the detonation still required a considerable amount of planning given the safety risks involved. Hampton said a crew has been on-site for about a week and a half preparing for the operation.<\/p>\n

On Monday of last week, a \u201cblaster\u201d arrived on-site. A blaster is an individual responsible for verifying that reports and photographs of the rock face actually match what they\u2019re seeing in person, and picks out ideal locations to place explosive charges so that the rocks come off the slope in a predictable and controllable manner.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe blaster owns the site at that point,\u201d Hampton explained. \u201cWhat he says goes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Planning continued Tuesday and Wednesday of last week, while the crews also took some time to placed metal anchors into the rock \u2014 set deep into the bedrock to help pulley up equipment like heavy drills to the blast site. The crews drilled deep into the rock beginning Thursday and throughout the weekend \u2014 about 15 to 20 feet deep \u2014 and set explosive charges into the holes Tuesday. The metal anchors will be removed following the conclusion of the operation.<\/p>\n

Once the day of the blast comes around, CDOT closes roads around the area \u2014 in this case, Interstate 70 between Silverthorne and Floyd Hill \u2014 until the area can be cleared of rocks on the roadway following the explosion.<\/p>\n

With the mitigation work completed, CDOT will begin placing mesh netting around the rock face to prevent any further loose rock from falling: one snug right up against the hill to help it hold its place and another to catch anything falling from above.<\/p>\n

In all, dozens of CDOT workers are involved in the process.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe call in a bunch of help anytime we do a road closure,\u201d Hampton said. \u201cThe CDOT engineering staff comes out to help man those closures and help make sure everything is closed off for the safety of our public, and the safety of our maintenance guys down the roadway. \u2026 It\u2019s all about safety. Whole system whole safety \u2014 those are the buzz words right now for us, and we live and breathe it.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Sky-Hi News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Colorado Department of Transportation blasts a rock face as part of rockfall mitigation work Dec. 18 near Idaho Springs.Sawyer D\u2019Argonne \/ sdargonne@summitdaily.com IDAHO SPRINGS \u2014 The Colorado Department of Transportation made a little noise on the mountains overlooking Interstate 70 on Wednesday, blasting a considerable portion of the rock face onto the roadway as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-20643","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-16 18:25:08","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KRKY Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20643\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}