The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission advises that black bears’ eating behavior changes in the late summer through fall. They significantly increase their food consumption to prepare for the colder months when natural food is less available. It’s called hyperphagia and it means “extreme appetite.” Which means they are on the search. 

The signs are still there lining the fragile bank separating Interstate 40 from the Pigeon River — chunks of jagged asphalt, wayward pipes, rusty cables bent into submission by nature. 

Just 11 months ago, as Hurricane Helene mercilessly swamped the whole region, the river, now low and calm, was force-fed by its tributaries and swelled to the point it carried away 10 sections of I-40’s eastbound lanes over about a five-mile stretch near the Tennessee border.

A critical process has been completed, permitting the N.C. Department of Transportation and its project team to extract rock necessary for reconstruction of Interstate 40 in the Pigeon River Gorge. 

If you’re like me, you avoid driving I-40 through the Pigeon River Gorge like warm beer on a hot summer day. 

Hey, if I have to circle through Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas to enter Tennessee from the west and then drive east back to Knoxville, I’ll do it. Perhaps I exaggerate, but that drive through the gorge to Knoxville has always been one of white knuckles, clinched orifices and prayers that speeding semis don’t topple over on you in a curve. 

The National Park Service will complete important maintenance along popular roads in Great Smoky Mountains National Park this June. This will require temporary partial closures of Little River Road and single-lane closures along the Spur to allow park staff to safely and efficiently complete this work.  

After more than four years of setbacks, political wrangling and bureaucratic delays, a small but vital infrastructure project in Haywood County is nearly complete — thanks in large part to the persistence of Rep. Mark Pless (R-Haywood). 

The Town of Waynesville has released its proposed list of street paving work for 2025, including 41 locations and nearly 5.5 miles of asphalt at a cost of nearly $400,000.

Officials at all levels of government, including new U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, visited the construction area along I-40 near the Tennessee border to take a look at progress and renew the pledge to get the necessary repairs done as quickly and safely as possible. 

As the rain from Hurricane Helene mercifully subsided around noon on Sept. 27, smaller creeks in Haywood County receded fairly quickly, the extra water from each flowing into larger tributaries before combining into the Pigeon River as it heads through a narrow gorge into Tennessee. 

From the Tennessee state line to about mile marker 4 of Interstate 40, the two eastbound lanes are either gone or partially gone. In addition, there are about three other damaged locations in an 11-mile stretch leading to Fines Creek Road (Exit 15).