On the 8th of October 2011, a portion of Cedar Canyon, near Cedar City, Utah, slid into the valley below and destroyed a small portion of State Route 14. The blocked portion of SR14 was only 800 feet or so. But, it was covered with 700,000 cubic yards of rock and dirt.
The road was impassable.
SR14 is a main thoroughfare heading East of Cedar City. It is THE WAY for those living in the valley to get to the mountains. They go for recreation, for hunting, to get to their cabins, for a lot of things. It is a well-used transportation artery. It is also THE WAY for everyone else to get to the mountains and to the National Parks and Forests. There are all sorts of visitors from Las Vegas and California and a lot of other places that travel through Cedar City on their way to the mountains. Cutting off this artery meant that travelers must travel between 40 to 80 miles out of their way to get to their destinations. Therefore, only the most determined people made the effort.
Most of the everyday tourists or recreationers just went elsewhere and didn’t try to go around.
This small disaster lasted only a few seconds. Initially, the Utah Department of Transportation said that the road would be out of commission for a few weeks. But, as the Engineers and Geologists converged on the site and planned for mitigating the crisis, they soon realized that this was going to take a lot more than a few weeks. The road was finally opened in May 2012, in time for Memorial Day Weekend.
And the cost was close to $20,000,000.
For references to the above facts, see St. George News – October 8, 2011; KSL.COM 24 May 2012, “Highway 14 finally opens after landslide cleanup,” By Alex Cabrero | Posted – May 24th, 2012 @ 6:29pm; and The Salt Lake Tribune, 8 June 2012, By Lee Davidson “More landslides on SR-14 raise repair costs.”
And this does not take into account the economic impact to businesses in Cedar City and the communities above the landslide that depend upon tourism and outdoor sports and recreation for their living. A Salt Lake Tribune Article in February 2012 went into detail. “SR 14 landslide has small businesses struggling to stay afloat,” By Alex Cabrero | Posted – Feb 1st, 2012 @ 10:11pm. “We don’t have any customers. Our sales on recreational vehicles have dropped to almost nothing. It’s almost to where you can’t survive.” – Rod Ence, a Businessman in Duck Creek.
My family was also affected. We have recreational property in the mountains above this landslide. It was mildly annoying for us to have to travel through Parowan in order to get to the property. But, we were part of that “determined” crowd and we were going to go as long as it was possible.
My point in all of this is that this was a relatively mild natural disaster.
A mere 800 feet of roadway!
And it cost $20 Million and took 7 Months to rebuild!!!
I believe that we are complacent about our transportation infrastructure. Most of the nations’ interstate highways and bridges were built prior to the births of Generation X and the Millennials. We forget that this system was constructed at great cost and sacrifice. We take it for granted. But, it is the lifeblood of American commerce and prosperity.
I will post more about this in the future. But, I believe that we are at great risk from natural and man-made disasters, not to mention a crumbling infrastructure that we ignore to our eventual peril.
Most of these photographs courtesy of the Utah Geological Survey.