Highway 95 Closes North of Council
A portion of ground fell away beneath Highway 95 at mile marker 146.5 sometime on Sunday March 16. The Sheriff’s office received their first call regarding the slide about 5p.m.
The highway is currently closed to all through traffic. Local traffic can get to Glendale from the south or Pine Ridge from the north, but no traffic is going through the slide area. Sheriff Zollman stated that his deputies can still get through to service emergencies in the New Meadows area. Zollman also has a plan to have the Idaho State Police take calls in New Meadows if needed.
I spoke with a representative with the Idaho Transportation Department on Monday afternoon. At that time they told me that ITD is hoping to have one lane open by the end of the week. This depends on the engineer’s analysis of the hillside first. If one lane opens, ITD would most likely place flaggers, and not a signal, at the site for traffic control.
The Idaho Transportation Department, in a press release on March 17th, described the slide as ‘a few hundred feet of downhill landslide.’ If the highway can open one lane, traffic will be limited to passenger vehicles only. Commercial vehicles would still be restricted. There was no mention of a weight limit in the press release.
When asked how big the slide is the ITD representative said it’s ‘significant and definitely a safety concern’ which you can see in the photo. The chunk of road missing seems to be about 12’ long by about 2’ wide.
The press release goes on to state that the particular area was already being monitored for storm damage concerns and that getting the highway fully open could take weeks.
Currently, the shortest route to McCall from Council (that isn’t snowed in) takes you through Emmett and would take almost four hours of driving one way.
