NCDOT photo
Interstate 40 will reopen through the Pigeon River Gorge on March 1, 2025, restoring the main highway connection between N.C. and Tenn. for the first time since damage from remnants of Hurricane Helene shut it down in late September 2024.
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Interstate 40 will reopen through the Pigeon River Gorge on March 1, 2025, restoring the main highway connection between N.C. and Tenn. for the first time since damage from remnants of Hurricane Helene shut it down in late September 2024.
N.C. Gov. Josh Stein announced the reopening Feb. 10, 2025 just a few yards from where a section of the highway collapsed into the river.
He was joined by members of the state's congressional delegation in the rugged gorge to meet with U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who saw the damaged interstate in person for the first time.
More than a mile of the eastbound lanes of I-40 were washed away by the swollen river just east of the N.C.-Tenn. line.
When the highway reopens, traffic will be confined to a single lane in each direction on the westbound side. The lanes will be 11 ft. wide, 1 ft. narrower than the interstate standard, so the speed limit will be 40 mph.
"At least it will start the process of reconnecting North Carolina with the rest of the country," Stein told reporters.
Since shortly after last fall's storm, contractors have worked to stabilize what is left of the highway through a process called "soil nailing." The process calls for driving long steel rods into bedrock below the road, fill them with grout that adheres to the rock and then spray concrete on the cliff face to hold the rods in place to create a solid wall.
That work was expected to be done by the end of December 2024, allowing the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) to open the westbound lanes the first week in January 2025. But another chunk of the highway fell into the river the week before Christmas, forcing a delay while contractors made sure all the vulnerable sections were secure.
The delay was necessary, Duffy told reporters at the site.
"You're not going to open up a roadway that's not safe, and I think that's the consideration that caused the delay," he said. "I think everyone here would agree that safety is paramount."
Duffy is the second U.S. Transportation Secretary to visit the gorge since the storm; his predecessor, Pete Buttigieg, came to see the highway damage in October 2024 and to pledge enough federal support that "funding is not a barrier" to rebuilding.
Duffy echoed that sentiment.
"The president has indicated he is fully supportive of the rebuild," he said. "I think you're going to have the resources necessary to help you make sure you're made whole after this disaster."
Rebuilding Will Cost $1B, Need Plenty of Rock
The NCDOT has estimated it will cost $5 billion to repair and rebuild roads and bridges damaged by Helene; the 4-mi. stretch of I-40 accounts for $1 billion of that. Several sections of the eastbound lanes also gave way on the Tenn. side of the state line.
The Raleigh news source reported that the N.C. transportation agency and its contractors are still fine-tuning their strategy for rebuilding I-40 but are likely to restore missing sections with bridges or fill behind concrete walls. An early step will be building a stone causeway alongside the Pigeon River to give building crews access to what is now as much as a 50-ft. cliff face in many places.
To get the tons of rock needed to build that causeway and restore missing sections of the road, NCDOT has begun talking with the U.S. Forest Service about mining it on land the federal agency controls around the highway, said Joey Hopkins, N.C.'s transportation secretary.
"It would be cheaper and easier to get the rock locally than from the nearest quarry, which is more than 20 miles away in Tennessee," Hopkins said. "It may also keep thousands of dump trucks off the two-lane section of I-40 that is expected to open next month."
"They're receptive to the concept," Hopkins said of U.S. Forest Service officials. "They're at the table talking to us and they've actually identified some sites that they would consider for us to mine from. So, we're going to pursue that further."
Duffy said his department also has been speaking with the forest service about streamlining the approval process for mining rock for I-40.
"If we can get permitting for that rock, it will be way cheaper and the project will get rebuilt way faster," he said.
In addition, NCDOT is still negotiating with its contractors over how long it will take to fully reopen I-40 through the gorge, but it has set a tentative date of May 2027, according to the News & Observer.
