A FREE Daily Visitor Guide for the North Carolina Mountains and 50+ NC Mountain Cities: Landslide causes Closure on US 441 near Cherokee

Friday, January 18, 2013

Landslide causes Closure on US 441 near Cherokee

US 441(Newfound Gap Road) is closed due to a landslide. Two easy alternative routes to Cherokee are available. The most popular detour would be Interstate 40 East into NC, to Highway 276, the Maggie Valley Exit, then west to Sylva, NC, to U.S. Highway 441 and north to Cherokee. Another alternate route would be to travel from west of Maryville on Highway 411. Take Highway 129 through Robbinsville, NC, then east on Highway 19/74 through Bryson City into Cherokee.

On January 16 the first assessment of the landslide which occurred in Great Smoky Mountains National Park along Newfound Gap Road ( US 441 at Collins Creek) in North Carolina shows that the landslide is approximately 90,000 cubic yards of material or 350-400 feet. It is around the length of a football field and 45-50 feet deep. The slide is still active and an assessment team, made up of Park Staff and Federal Highways employees, observed debris continuing to fall.

The park still does not have an estimated time frame for the road to be open. Federal Highways and park staff are continuing to look at the site to assess options for repair and is hoping to have a rough estimate of a sometime in the next week. Inclement weather is expected over the next few days which may hinder the assessment team.

Further updates on the road condition will follow as details are determined. For Additional information contact:
Molly_Schroer@nps.gov
Public Affairs Office
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
(865) 436-1203

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