US-50 Closure all night, as paged

[jimmnn]

Fremont County: US 50 rockslide is 1 mile WEST of Cotiopaxi, detour US 285, US 24 and CO 9, overnight closure expected.

Jim<

 

[jimmnn]

Hearing a couple of those rocks are the size of a car. May be longer than just over night..

Jim<

 

[jimmnn]

Looks like this may take a while to clear.

Jim<

 

[OsloViking1975]

Looks like this may take a while to clear.

Jim<

Wow, I use to drive that highway alot, that always did worry me.

 

[firescannerbob]

CDOT now saying might be closed for up to a week.

 

[jimmnn]

CDOT crews and contractors have been working very hard trying to break up rock and haul it away at the site of the rockslide that occurred this past Monday on US 50, west of Cotopaxi. The process is going very slow due to the large size of the rocks. Crews are blasting, drilling and hammering the rocks to break them down and 10 trucks are on site hauling the material away. The road damage right now looks to be minimal.

We estimate that about 7,000 tons of rock came down, which is enough to fill about 30 average size swimming pools. We anticipate that we will haul off around 300 truckloads of rock when complete.

Crews working to reopen the road have confirmed that the road will not open today or Saturday. We don’t know yet if we will be able to get the road open on Sunday or if it will be later but we will continue to provide regular updates.

We know this has been difficult for nearby communities and we are working as hard and as fast as we can to clear this rock and open the road to traffic. CDOT thanks the communities and traveling public for their understanding.