Crews clearing Idaho landslide find crack in rock face, pushing back road reopening

Update, Sunday at 3:30 p.m.: The Idaho Transportation Department said in a Sunday news release that it must delay reopening U.S. 95 near Riggins due to safety concerns over the rockslide that closed the route on Friday.

The Idaho County Sheriff’s Office said Friday that the slide closed off the key north-south route from McCall to Lewiston and North Idaho. The Sheriff’s Office said online that the slide occurred at milepost 188 in the area of Sheep Creek. U.S. 95 is blocked between New Meadows and about 5 miles south of Riggins.

ITD estimated Saturday morning that it may be able to temporarily reopen the road by Sunday afternoon. In an update on Sunday, the agency said those plans were canceled once crews working on clearing the slide Saturday afternoon noticed a large crack in the rock face. Crews left the site, which will continue to be monitored.

“We know this is contradictory to what we had hoped to accomplish today and will cause long detours for travelers heading home,” ITD district engineer Doral Hoff said in a news release. “However, without enough data and uncertainty about an apparent gap at the top of the hillside, we are concerned it might be active still.”

In the news release, operations engineer Jared Hopkins said ITD will continue to conduct geotechnical surveys and have experts survey the slope on Monday. Still, experts were hesitant to give an estimate of when the slide might be removed or when a temporary route might be available.

The department said the initial rockslide was about 120 feet long and 40 feet deep at its base, with some boulders measuring as much as 25 feet tall and 25 feet wide.

It wasn’t clear Sunday how much of the debris had been removed as workers attempted to build a berm and container boxes to shield travelers from additional falling rocks.

This story was originally published July 3, 2020 at 2:50 PM.