A massive rockslide in the Wet Mountains covered a southern Colorado highway with thousands of tons of boulders and debris on Sunday, closing roads and challenging state officials tasked with stabilizing the soil. Colorado 96 and Colorado 165 at McKenzie Junction in Custer County were closed Sunday afternoon after large slabs of earth dislodged and tumbled onto the roadway. Colorado 165 reopened Thursday but Colorado 96 remains closed between the rockslide and Wetmore, according to the state Department of Transportation. Local residents captured the slide on video as 911 calls started coming in around 3 p.m., the Custer County Sheriff’s Office said on Facebook. The area is part of the Ilse fault zone, Colorado Geological Survey geologist Jay Temple said in a video shared by the sheriff’s office. The fault zone hasn’t been active for nearly a billion years, Temple said, but is still impacted by snow melting through fractures in the earth, causing unstable soil and slides Cleanup crews had removed more than 7,200 tons of debris from the highway as of Thursday, according to the sheriff’s office. State officials will likely need to use dynamite to lower the slope and move it back from the highway to prevent and lessen the impact of future landslides, Temple said. Sign up to get crime news sent straight to your inbox each day.

BING NEWS:
  • Southern Colorado rockslide covers highway with mountain of boulders, debris
    A massive rockslide in the Wet Mountains covered a southern Colorado highway with thousands of tons of boulders and debris on Sunday, closing roads and challenging state officials tasked with ...
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    01/2/2025 - 8:10 am | View Link
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