(c)2009 NPT PHOTO BY NELSON MORAIS

Over 40 people attended a self-styled "town hall meeting" on Tuesday, Nov. 10, at City Hall
about the massive rockslide that occurred near the Tennessee/North Carolina border, on
Oct. 25. City of Newport Mayor Connie Ball, standing, left, and Cocke County Mayor Iliff
McMahan, right, discussed efforts to clear the rockslide, detour routes, and severe economic
effects the rockslide has had on area businesses.

NEWPORT-State transportation and local officials addressed about 40 people who gathered on Tuesday, Nov. 10, for a town hall meeting on the North Carolina rockslide that is adversely affecting many businesses, including tourism, in Newport and Cocke County.

The purpose of the meeting at Newport City Hall was "to share information" about efforts to reopen I-40 in the Tennessee/North Carolina area and take suggestions on how to best minimize the economic hardships it has brought to many area businesses that rely on the interstate's traffic, said Don Hurst, President of the Cocke County Partnership.

"We (the CCP) are here to do business on your behalf," Hurst said.

"We're suffering the results of that rockslide" on Sunday, Oct. 25, at mile marker 3, just over the Tennessee/North Carolina border, in North Carolina, he added.

I-40 traffic through Cocke County has slowed down dramatically, Hurst said.

Hurst, County Mayor Iliff McMahan, City of Newport Mayor Connie Ball, and Amanda Snowden, the regional traffic engineer in Knoxville for the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT), discussed efforts they have made, and are making, to get I-40 traffic in the area flowing again. They also answered questions from the audience.

Hurst noted that TDOT is not the authority in charge of the cleanup and situation, but rather, North Carolina's Department of Transportation (NCDOT) is, because of the location of the rockslide inside North Carolina's borders.

Hurst asked businesses affected by the rockslide to keep daily books that compare the amount of business they are currently receiving versus the amount on the same day in 2008, or in 1999, when the area last suffered a major rockslide.

"We want to learn from what's happening to your business," Hurst said, who asked that percentages in the amount of business that has dropped be forwarded to the Partnership, which will in turn provide to State of Tennessee officials, on a confidential basis, concrete evidence of the rockslide's effect on local businesses.

Officials said as soon as the rockslide occurred, they contacted state of Tennessee and federal officials to get the money needed to clear out the rubble. Within two days of the rockslide, all the money to clean it up was secured, they said.

Since the rockslide, traffic on Highway 25/70, a detour route, has doubled, officials said.

However, because of a 10-ton limit on Bridgeport Bridge, which spans the French Broad River, commercial trucks are not able to use the bridge as an alternative route, Mayor Ball said.

Hurst said officials have discovered that the largest volume of questions from drivers about the rockslide and detours is occurring on Jellico Mountain, on I-75, near the Tennessee/Kentucky border.

When Mayor Ball was asked if there would be any federal funding to relieve struggling businesses being hurt economically by the rockslide, he answered, "no," because, unlike in the case of either an earthquake, storm, or flood, no one has suffered actual physical harm from the rockslide.

County Mayor McMahan said officials are pursuing "a two-pronged effort": first, to open two lanes at the site of the rockslide, one in each direction, "as soon as possible," and being sure that "NCDOT has all the help they need from federal, state and local agencies to do that"; and second, how to inform motorists traveling on other parts of I-40, in partnership with TDOT, that all I-40 exits in Tennessee are open for business, especially by portable electronic messages flashed along I-40 from Knoxville.

McMahan said this morning that officials want the traveling pubic to know there are alternate routes to North Carolina, "mainly the Old Asheville Highway, which can be accessed by Exits 432B, 435, and 440.

"We want to be sure we don't sleight any exit (or businesses near each exit), but to let the public have the option of three exits to connect with Highway 25/70 to Asheville," McMahan stated.

McMahan also said he would like TDOT to consider mentioning Highway 321 South to Gatlinburg on exit 435 as an alternate route, as well.

McMahan said he met with the three TDOT officials that attended the town hall meeting, after everyone else had left, to discuss specific wording on each electronic, portable sign as far away as Knoxville that he and Hurst had seen on the way back to the area from Knoxville.

At the town hall meeting, Snowden, from the regional TDOT office in Knoxville, said, "We're up here to stand as partners and listen to your concerns."

She said traffic has doubled on Highway 25/70 since the rockslide, roughly from 4,500 a day to 9,000 vehicles per day, a figure gathered from traffic counters on the road at the Bridgeport Bridge. Some officials expressed concern that they did not want to "overload" 25/70 with too much detoured traffic, creating bottlenecks and potential massive slowdowns in the case of an accident.

Snowden said TDOT's Web site has daily updates on the cleanup of the rockslide. "Some of the boulders in the rockslide are the size of large apartment buildings," she said. She added that rain delays the process to clear the rubble because "you can't dynamite (boulders) in the rain."

Hurst said the idea for Tuesday's town hall meeting came out of a recent City of Newport planning commission meeting and a Newport City Council meeting.

He said he expects there will one or more town hall meetings as progress on efforts related to the rockslide evolve.

For more information, business owners and other interested parties may call the Cocke County Partnership at (423) 623-3008.