Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 12, 1994 TAG: 9403120142
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACK HORSE GAP LENGTH: Short
On the side, he blows things up. Like the 150-ton chunk of rock that slid off a cliff and landed on the Blue Ridge Parkway during last week's storm.
It was big, too big for the parkway's front-loader to move. Too big to leave there, smack in the middle of the southbound lane, about nine miles north of the U.S. 460 entrance.
It was a job for Mosely and G&G Construction in Buchanan, which has helped the parkway with other rockslides over the years.
Friday afternoon, after carefully assessing the situation, Mosely and his crew drilled three holes in the rock, dropped in three sticks of dynamite, hooked up some wires and walked around the bend, out of fallout range.
The boom exploded the silence high up on the parkway, 2,402 feet above the valley. Then all was quiet again. A few hawks called in the distance.
When the dust settled, one big rock had been reduced to one big pile of rubble. It'll take parkway crews all weekend to clean up the mess, Maintenance Director Danny Peters said. The constant freezing and thawing of water in cracks in the cliff loosened the rock and sent it crashing to the road, he said.
The parkway from U.S. 220 south still is impassable in spots, Peters said; and from Apple Orchard Falls north, the road is closed.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***