2025 A Look Back: Megalith Award
The Pigeon River eroded the base of the lanes through the Pigeon River Gorge during Hurricane Helene in September 2024. Now NCDOT is embarking on a monumental project to shore up the highway.
NCDOT photo
“The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.”
— Benjamin Franklin (probably)
When Hurricane Helene devastated Western North Carolina, an oft repeated theme among elected and civic leaders was that the area would be built back better.
That ambitious promise has been on display nowhere more than I-40 through the Pigeon River Gorge. A stretch of four miles or so of the highway had been washed away as the raging river ate away at the banks supporting that vital thoroughfare.
A whole host of state and federal officials have visited the spot around mile marker 3 where the eastbound lanes of Interstate 40 disappear entirely, leaving a sharp chasm that has served as the backdrop for pictures seen across state and national media outlets. They all went for that common refrain.
This is not an easy ask, considering I-40 was routed through an utterly treacherous gorge that has caused nothing but problems and cost plenty of taxpayer dollars along the way. Now we’re stuck with it, and the potential solutions to rebuilding that all would have come with a big price tag.
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Many hoped to see a viaduct constructed, part of which likely would have set the road right above the river. There are some practical arguments in favor of building a viaduct, but people mostly just thought it would be rad. But it also would have likely been the priciest option.
In late August, a large group of eager reporters from around the region gathered along the river and spoke with engineers working on the project. While the engineers certainly didn’t seem thrilled to be put on the spot, they were excited to talk about the massive scope of the project — or at least as exuberant as engineers can get.
The embankment that had previously washed away will be built out and fortified using rolled concrete, a highly resilient material that hasn’t been used in an NCDOT project to date, at a thickness of between 30 and 70 feet. Everything will be anchored into the ground using an interlocking system of internal pipe piles.
The project is estimated to cost $1.4 billion, almost double the previous most expensive NCDOT project. It will require moving 3 million cubic yards of earth to fill in behind the megalithic retaining wall.
That earth will be sourced from a nearby area in the Pisgah National Forest. While NCDEQ appeared to put up a good fight against the unstoppable force of the federal government, there are still environmental concerns with such an expedited permitting process to dig a giant hole in a national forest that is home to endangered creatures.
I-40 near the North Carolina-Tennessee line is expected to reopen in all its four-lane glory sometime in 2028, and when the next climate disaster hits Haywood, we’ll get to see just how resilient our new megalith really is.
