page_title: Interstate 40 in North Carolina
section_title: Pigeon River Gorge
hierarchical_section_title: Interstate 40 in North Carolina / History / Since completion / Pigeon River Gorge
caption_attribution_description: English: Crews clearing the outside lane of I-40 West at Mile Marker 7 in Haywood County following a rockslide.
context_page_description: Interstate 40 is a part of the Interstate Highway System that runs from Barstow, California to Wilmington, North Carolina. In North Carolina, I-40 enters the state along the Pigeon River Gorge, from Tennessee. Crossing the entire state, it connects the cities of Asheville, Statesville, Winston-Salem, Greensboro, Burlington, Durham and Raleigh before ending along U.S. Highway 117/North Carolina Highway 132 in Wilmington. The landscapes traversed by I-40 include the Blue Ridge Mountains, foothills of western North Carolina, suburban communities, the urban core of several Piedmont cities, along with eastern North Carolina farmland. At a total of 423.55 miles, it is the longest interstate highway in North Carolina. There are five auxiliary Interstates in the state related to I-40, as well as one business loop which currently runs through Winston-Salem. The route is labeled east-west for the entire route, however the eastern portion follows a much more north-south alignment.
  The freeway bears several names in addition to the I-40 designation. Throughout the state the freeway is known as the Blue Star Memorial Highway a name shared with multiple interstates across the state.
context_section_description: The first section of I-40 in North Carolina is the section that travels through the Pigeon River Gorge in Haywood County. Known locally as simply "The Gorge", this part of I-40 cuts a path from the Tennessee state line to Waynesville. This section of the interstate is curvy and tends to become a bit narrow in some places when compared to other portions of the highway. Because much of the road was cut through mountainside and along the river, concrete retaining walls have been built on both sides of the road and in the median, cutting down on the width of the breakdown lanes. Coupled with speeding vehicles, the thick fog that tends to plague the area, winter weather, and little room to maneuver in case of accident, this area has become notorious for its severe and many times fatal accidents. It is reported that a person is 20 times as likely to die on I-40 in Haywood County than they would be to win the Powerball lottery, which equals to be twice the average of any other Interstate Highway in North Carolina.
  Even some minor accidents have been known to tie up traffic in this area, because there is little room to move accidents off or to the side of the road with the terrain. Speeding semi trucks have been a problem in the gorge and have subsequently led to many accidents. In 2002 and 2003, two state troopers were killed in two separate accidents by speeding trucks that drifted off the road and hit their police car conducting a traffic stop.  This led the North Carolina Highway Patrol to crack down on speeding tractor trailers and speeders in general through the area.
  This portion of the highway is also notorious for rockslides and rocks falling onto the highway. The main cause is an engineering flaw, in that sections of the highway have been built on the north side of the Pigeon River, where the rock strata foliate towards the highway.
  In 1985, a severe rockslide buried the westbound entrance to one of two tunnels that carry the highway through the gorge. Repair of the slide area and the tunnel required shifting westbound traffic to the eastbound tunnel, while eastbound traffic was diverted onto a temporary viaduct around the tunnels. In July 1997, a rockslide near the Tennessee state line closed the entire road for nearly three months.
  In 2009, a large rockslide at mile marker 2.6 along I-40 near the Tennessee State Line shut down the freeway for several weeks. While the slide only caused minor injuries, it shut down Interstate 40 in both directions.
caption: Crews clearing the westbound lanes from the 2012 rockslide
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