CHEYENNE, Wyo.– A landslide that wiped out a vital two-lane highway in western Wyoming is creating a mountain of headaches for thousands of commuting tourist city workers at the start of the Yellowstone region’s busy summer season.
After the slide, both lanes steered crashes into a ravine near Teton Pass On Saturday it remains to be seen when Wyoming Highway 22, between Jackson, Wyoming and eastern Idaho, will reopen.
Compared to other highways in the region, the route over the 8,000-foot pass is not essential to reach Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. Most visitors do not go over Teton Pass and access to the park remains unhindered.
But for thousands of daily commuters who work in expensive Jackson and live in more affordable Eastern Idaho, the highway is a crucial twice-daily connection.
Here’s what you need to know as the situation continues to unfold:
There were signs that the highway was slipping.
When a crack opened and the road dropped a bit on Thursday, a quick patch allowed traffic to resume until a mudslide further up the road closed the highway again.
That closure turned out to be a good thing. No one was riding on the previously cracked section when it tumbled dozens of meters downhill early Saturday.
Landslides like the one that famously struck Big Sur area on the coast of California are not uncommon in mountainous areas. Sometimes they are sudden, with deadly consequenceswhile others crawl and leaves people wondering when they will end.
When this crisis will end is the question on the minds of many who commute over the Teton Pass.
With famous views of the Teton Range, two national parks, and major ski areas nearby, Teton County, Wyoming, is extremely expensive, with the average single-family home recently exceeding $7 million and the cheapest a hefty $1.3 million, according to a recent report.
That’s far too expensive for many teachers, health care workers, public safety officials and others who work in Jackson, the main city in Teton County. They include 20% of the employees at Jackson’s largest year-round employer, St. John’s Health.
Every day, thousands of people make (or used to make) the half-hour-plus drive over Teton Pass from more affordable communities in eastern Idaho. Commuters now expect at least another hour’s drive and possibly two hours via a different route to Wyoming.
“More distance, more time, more gas,” says Amy McCarthy, who lives just over the pass outside Victor, Idaho.
McCarthy normally has a 22-minute commute to her job as director of the Teton Raptor Center in western Jackson Hole, the valley that includes Jackson and much of Grand Teton National Park. Now she and about a third of the staff at the injured bird of prey sanctuary have to commute an hour and a half or more.
The Teton Raptor Center, which requires staff on site 24/7, is working with local supporters to see who has room in their homes to house its employees for a few nights at a time — a discussion many others in Idaho are having with people in Jackson.
“Everyone is scrambling and mobilizing,” Teton County Commissioner Luther Propst said.
The county is in the process of drafting temporary regulations to open more areas for workers to camp, such as in the parking lots at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort ski area, Propst said.
County officials are also considering making their thrice-daily shuttle buses free in Idaho and possibly putting more buses into service.
“If you’re running an eight- to 12-hour shift, and you add another four hours of driving, you might want as much bus service as possible so people can take a nap,” Propst said.
The crisis is also an opportunity to ensure that buses in service run to workable timetables – one on Monday on a longer route than usual less than a third full – and to ensure that more workers can live locally . Teton County Commissioner Wes Gardner said.
“We are fortunate to have the community that we have in Idaho and the housing that we have there,” Gardner said. “But when something like this happens, it becomes clear how that is kind of a band-aid.”
According to the Wyoming Department of Transportation, at least a partial reopening of the road will take weeks, but not months.
Governor Mark Gordon has declared an official state of emergency that will help access additional funds from the Federal Highway Administration to begin repair work. The Wyoming Department of Transportation is having engineers and geologists assess the site to begin work on a temporary fix for the road closure, Gordon spokesman Michael Pearlman said Monday.
The first goal is likely to ensure that no new landslides are on the way and that road workers don’t accidentally cause new landslides, said Bill Panos, former director of the state Department of Transportation.
“They will come up with different approaches,” Panos said. “The ones that are fastest, most cost-effective and safest are likely to be the ones they use.”
For the time being, McCarthy is resigned to very long rides next summer.
“I’m going to download a lot more Audible books,” she said.