{"id":98840,"date":"2018-07-09T10:08:20","date_gmt":"2018-07-09T16:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/red-mountain-pass-reopens-after-rock-slides\/"},"modified":"2018-07-09T10:08:20","modified_gmt":"2018-07-09T16:08:20","slug":"red-mountain-pass-reopens-after-rock-slides","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/red-mountain-pass-reopens-after-rock-slides\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Mountain Pass reopens after rock slides"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=30652334-f93d-45ad-a527-05dd0095d6f4&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" srcset=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=30652334-f93d-45ad-a527-05dd0095d6f4&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=800 800w, https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=30652334-f93d-45ad-a527-05dd0095d6f4&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=1200 1200w, https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=30652334-f93d-45ad-a527-05dd0095d6f4&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=1800 1800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 2000px\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" alt=\"More than 4 feet of mud and rock covered U.S. Highway 550 about 2 miles south of Ouray on Sunday. The highway remained closed Monday while crews assessed damage to the highway.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">More than 4 feet of mud and rock covered U.S. Highway 550 about 2 miles south of Ouray on Sunday. The highway remained closed Monday while crews assessed damage to the highway.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Colorado Department of Transportation<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>Red Mountain Pass reopened late Monday afternoon, a day after a rock slide buried U.S. Highway 550 in up to 10 feet of rock and mud.<\/p>\n<p>The Colorado Department of Transportation closed the highway about 5 p.m. Sunday. Maintenance crews cleared rock and mud from 4 to 10 feet deep in some areas, according to a CDOT press release Monday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHeavy rains in the high country yesterday resulted in flooding and debris flows blocking the highway,\u201d John Palmer, CDOT deputy superintendent of maintenance, said in the press release. \u201cTo ensure the safety of the traveling public and our maintenance crews while they operated heavy equipment, the highway was closed through the night and today for clearing and damage assessment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On Monday, CDOT engineering and maintenance staff assessed possible damage to the roadway and structures including cribwalls.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCribwalls are essentially retaining structures which stabilize the road surface. They are designed to support highways which have steep drop-offs,\u201d said Kevin Curry, a CDOT engineer.<\/p>\n<p>CDOT also said geotechnical staff from its headquarters in Denver were en route to the Red Mountain Pass site for additional inspections.<\/p>\n<p>The main rock slide occurred about 2 miles south of Ouray, but multiple stretches of the highway experienced flooding and debris flows.<\/p>\n<p>The rock slide was the result of heavy rain in the high country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have not had any moisture, so when we suddenly get a downpour, that water doesn\u2019t necessarily soak into the ground like it should,\u201d said CDOT spokeswoman Lisa Schwantes. \u201c\u2026 It looks like this came from way up high.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Those who may have been recreating Sunday in the backcountry along the closure area were escorted off the highway.<\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_shirttail\">The Durango Herald contributed to this article.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Highway crews assessing damage from Sunday\u2019s weather event<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":98841,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[87],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-98840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-red-mountain-pass"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98840"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=98840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}