There’s something similar to a small city of construction workers and heavy machinery along Interstate 40 near the Tennessee border.
It’s part of a $2 billion effort to repair the highway, which was partially washed into the Pigeon River by Hurricane Helene. North Carolina Department of Transportation officials are hoping the project — one of the most expensive in state history — will lead the interstate to a more resilient future.
On a recent sunny morning, workers in hard hats and vests were harvesting rock from the nearby Pisgah National Forest. Every now and then, an off-road truck rattled across a bridge and dumped the rocks at a site where machines crushed them into ever-smaller pieces that were then hauled further up the river.
The winding, 5-mile stretch of interstate along the Pigeon River Gorge just south of the Tennessee border has seen its share of temporary repairs due to landslides and other disasters over the years.
But after 1 million cubic yards of rock — as well as the highway’s eastbound lanes — crumbled into the raging floodwaters during Hurricane Helene, the state has been looking for a longer-lasting fix. That’s according to Blake Soblesky, resident engineer for the state Department of Transportation.
“The intent of our design is to withstand a similar event such as Helene,” Soblesky told reporters during a media tour of the worksite.
Engineers used hydraulics and hydrology analysis to determine how high a retaining wall would be needed to withstand a similar flood event. On average, the highway sits at a height of 70 feet above the Pigeon River in this narrow stretch of the gorge. Some sections of the roadway are 100 feet higher than the river.
The embankment that the storm washed away was made of aggregate, or rocks that weren’t attached to each other. Now, NCDOT is using a similar material, but a new technique that creates giant slabs mixed with cement, known as roller-compacted concrete.
“And then we're bonding that all in one giant mass,” Soblesky said. “So, that roller-compacted concrete is 30 feet wide and somewhere between 30 and 50 feet tall. And then that material is more resilient and not as scourable.”
The gorge’s V-shaped terrain and remote location makes construction a challenge. Crews built a 6-mile-long causeway next to the river to give workers and vehicles room to maneuver.
An agreement between NCDOT and the U.S. Forest Service allows workers to use rock from the surrounding Pisgah National Forest, rather than trucking it in from elsewhere. That makes the project around 30% cheaper as well as more time-efficient, according to NCDOT.
“There's still some things that have to be brought in for the project, obviously,” Division 14 construction engineer Josh Deyton said. “But we are trying to minimize that. And I feel like that's a good win for the folks that use the facility and for the taxpayers, because it does actually save some money.”
Deyton noted that there are few highways connecting western North Carolina to Tennessee due to the mountainous terrain. That makes I-40 an especially critical route for freight throughout the Southeast.
“It is massive in scale,” Deyton said of the project. “It's a novel approach to repairing these areas. The amount of roller-compacted concrete that we're doing on this project is one of the largest roller-compacted concrete projects in the U.S.”
About 300 workers are currently onsite. That number is expected to increase to about 500 over the summer.
Work on this section of the reconstruction began in late February, Soblesky said. So far, there are 31,000 cubic yards of concrete at the site, which represents about 4% of the expected total. Altogether, the project is about 15% done.
The worksite’s remote location also means there are some unexpected hazards.
“We have some additional dangers that aren’t normal,” Soblesky said. “We have a lot of rattlesnakes — particularly around the barrier.”
I-40 is still reduced to one lane in each direction while construction is underway. The project is expected to be completed in fall 2028.
