On April 11, a large landslide closed the highway going into the tunnel to Whittier.
For those unfamiliar with it, the port town of Whittier is located on the east side of the Kenai Peninsula. The only road is on the west side; with mountains in-between.
For years, you could take a train to get there, and the alternative was to take a ferry from one of the other ports (Anchorage, Seward, Homer, etc).
11 years ago, the railroad tunnel (2.5 miles long) was widened to allow automobiles to travel, but only one way at a time. It's now the the longest combined vehicle-railroad tunnel in North America.
The trains are still able to get through, because the tracks approach the mouth of the tunnel from a different direction, but the highway was covered by a pile of pickup truck sized boulders, in a pile approximately three stories high. A demolition team was brought in to break up the large pieces, as they are too big to move with standard highway equipment.
Now there's another development, delaying the reopening of the road. Read the current developments here.
2 comments:
Love the new masthead. That fellow has quite a rack! The snow on it makes it a bit comical.
That's really something about the tunnel. I never heard a thing about it on the national news.They were probably too busy gearing up for harassing the TEA party rallys.hmmm?
Wow.
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