A landslide in the Teton Mountains destroyed part of a highway connecting Idaho to Jackson, Wyo. connects, forcing authorities to close the road indefinitely on Saturday, just as the region entered the summer tourism season.
No one was injured when a section of Teton Pass “catastrophically failed,” the Wyoming Department of Transportation said in a statement Saturday. The highway west of Jackson had been closed to traffic before the road gave way, and crews were working to build a detour around a section where a crack in the surface had appeared days earlier.
The department said it expects a long-term closure. Gov. Mark Gordon of Wyoming said in a separate statement that geologists and engineers were “developing a long-term solution to rebuild the road.”
Even a short closure would pose major logistical challenges for the area, including because the road serves Jackson Hole, a major tourism center in Teton County. Travel and tourism is Wyoming’s second-largest industry, according to the Jackson Hole Travel and Tourism Board, and the county collected about $1.7 billion in travel-related spending in 2022.
“We understand that this highway is a lifeline for commuters, deliveries, access to medical care and tourism, especially with limited alternatives and the approaching summer season,” Darin Westby, the director of the state Department of Transportation, said in a separate statement.
The department’s “engineers, surveyors and geologists quickly mobilized to keep the highway operational for as long as possible, but a catastrophic failure could not be avoided,” Westby said.
The Jackson Hole Chamber of Commerce said on its website that travelers could still reach the Jackson area from the west by taking two other roads through the Snake River Canyon. But this detour adds more than an hour to travel time, local news outlet WyoFile reported.
The collapsed section of Wyoming State Highway 22 was initially closed earlier this week after cracks appeared in the surface. It reopened after crews patched the cracks, but was closed again after a separate mudslide spilled mud and debris across the road a few miles away, the Transportation Department said.
The department said in its statement Saturday that its teams were still working to clear the mud and debris.
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2024-06-10 02:55:23
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