Hwy. 64 may be closed to the public, but it’s a busy place with work underway in several places to make it safer when it does reopen. Contrator Charles Blalock & Sons is working on stabilizing the site of two rockslides and employees of the Tennessee Department of Transpotation are working on widening the notorious 15-mph-curve as well as making improvements in other areas.

Several county commissioners – Mark Bishop, Greg Brooks, Wanda Cheek, John Pippenger and Daren Waters – visited the highway Saturday, along with Melitte McCoy and several others, to get a first-hand look at the work. Steve Jones, Polk County Supervisor for TDOT, and Roger Steward, Assistant to Ray Rucker in the Chattanooga TDOT office, provided briefings and answered questions. Later in the day, North Carolina Senator Heath Shuler was scheduled to visit.

Jones greeted the group wearing a battle scar – a cut on his forehead that resulted when a rock came flying through the window of the equipment he was using during the work. He pointed out unstable areas along the road, including a spot where drill holes from 1940s road construction no longer line up, an indication that the rock bluff is shifting. There is also a place where the side of the mountain is visibly bulging. He said there was one spot where he tapped a rock with a hammer and a 30-foot slab came crashing down.

Jones said his key emphasis now is carving out a 30-foot-wide area for roadbed and shoulders at the notorious 15mph curve, noting it could not have been done before without closing the road for an extended period of time. He said a contractor had offered to do the work for $2 million, with a six-month road closure. TDOT worked with TVA, the Forest Service, Tennessee Department of Environment & Conservation, and other interested agencies to develop the plan being put in place by state maintenance workers while the road is closed. The westbound lane has been turned into a ramp to allow equipment to get to the mountainside for removal of rock, which is being taken to the Hwy. 411 construction site for fill. Because it is pyritic (acid) rock, the debris is encapsulated with lime and clay for environmental protection.

Jones said weather has been the biggest problem for the workers, not only because of the difficulty of working in snow and cold but also because workers are needed elsewhere for cleanup work and traffic control.

At the main slide, blasting has begun on the eastern side of the slope, where a 20-foot-thick shelf of unstable rock must be removed. Blalock workers were setting charges from a cage dangling 100 feet in the air from a monstrous crane, preparations were being made for putting 40-foot rock bolts on the western side of the slope, and other workers were breaking up huge rocks still atop the rafting put-in ramp in the riverbed. Jones said they won’t know how much damage the put-in sustained until the rock is removed.

Jones and Steward said the blasting is a slow process. Loose rock is removed, holes are drilled and packed with explosives, blasting caps are put in place and the area is cleared out before the explosive is set off. Then all loose rock has to be removed from the mountainside before debris can be hauled off and work can begin on the next round of blasting. Small blasts are used to create controlled rockslides to avoid the whole mountainside coming down and possibly damaging the TVA dam just across the road. There is a rockfall fence to protect the dam from debris. A crane pad is needed to stabilize the machine and is extended as the work moves east.

Jones said the debris at the slide, which is not pyritic, is being stockpiled so it can be used in places where it is needed, thus saving the state money.

There is still uncertainly about what lies beneath the top layer of the eastern slope. Jones said there is no way to tell from the surface, as he has found while working in other areas. As each layer is taken off, the rock underneath could be different from that on top. “You can go two feet in and it changes,” he said.

Work on repaving the roadbed can’t begin until the stabilization is complete. Jones said it will only take a few days as long as the weather is warm enough for paving. He said the road will have to be rebuilt, noting the center line ended up in the river bed.

At the site of the second slide near Madden’s Branch, one lane of the road is being used for a ramp to allow workers to remove unstable rock. TDOT engineers said the second slide, which did not seem as bad at first, will generate as much debris as the first one.

Jones said they are still working toward a March 31 opening. TDOT’s West Hughen said last week that once the eastern slope is stabilized, they could have one lane closed at night for rock bolting to continue.