Expert crews are rappelling down a steep wall of jagged, unstable rocks above Interstate 40 in western North Carolina, beginning the cleanup and repair process of an Oct. 25 rockslide that shut the highway down. The repair could take four months and cost $10 million.
The 500,000-ton rockslide on U.S. Forest Service land caused the North Carolina Dept. of Transportation to declare an emergency and Gov. Beverly Perdue (D) has asked the U.S. Dept. of Transportation to declare the rockslide a federal disaster area.
