Idaho 55 closed near Smiths Ferry after rockslide Monday night; highway could reopen soon
A rockslide north of Smiths Ferry closed Idaho 55 on Monday night. The damage occurred within a mile-long construction area south of the Rainbow Bridge, where work crews were scheduled to dig into a nearby hillside to expand the highway.
There are no known injuries, according to the Idaho Transportation Department. The highway that connects Boise to McCall and northwestern Idaho will remain closed until at least 2 p.m. Tuesday while work crews clear the area. Transportation officials were alerted of the slide around 10 p.m. Monday night, said Jake Melder, an ITD spokesman, in a phone interview. The road has been deemed unsafe and ITD recommends travelers take alternate routes.
Though the rock fall occurred in a construction area, crews had not been working at the site. Planned blasting on the hillside adjacent to the highway was scheduled to begin this week, and a construction excavator being stored there was hit by the slide. The project area is between mile markers 98.3 and 99.3.
“The rock and earth in this area is historically unstable,” highway project manager Alex Deduck said in a post on ITD’s website.
A mudslide in 2019 closed the same highway further south and obstructed traffic between the Treasure Valley and the towns of McCall, Donnelly and Cascade to the north.
“Rockslides are a very common thing on this type of roadway,” Melder said. In the spring, “snow will melt and water seeps into the crevices and freezes. Over time that can be enough to separate the rock from the face of the hill where it will let go, and that’s what we think happened here.”
This is a breaking news post and will be updated.
This story was originally published March 16, 2021 at 12:24 PM.
