Inside the $2 billion I-40 rebuild: How engineers are building back stronger after Helene

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]from the Dragon this year. It's a very popular route [snorts] this weekend for Memorial Day travel. We're talking about Interstate 40. It's how you get from uh Newport to Asheville through the gorge.

[00:00:12]Big chunk of it still down to one lane after Hurricane Helene washed parts of it away. And it may be years before it's fully reopened. Our Caroline Miller shows us why the work will make sure this never happens again.

[00:00:23]When Helene hit in September of 2024, a roughly a 5-mile stretch of I-40 collapsed into the river below. Today, we went inside the active work zones to see what the near $2 billion rebuild looks like up close. That would be the largest uh NCDOT project uh you know, uh today. The backbone of the rebuild is a construction method called roller compacted concrete.

[00:00:50]Rock blasted from a borrow site in the US National Forest, crushed down and mixed into concrete right here in the gorge. We're saving, you know, roughly 30% in cost and time by getting local material on site and making it here and using it here. The walls going up along these embankments will stand 30 to 50 ft tall, bonded into one solid mass. The old road was built on loose material that simply washed away.

[00:01:16]This time, engineers say they're building something that can take a hit.

[00:01:21]The intent of our design is to withstand a similar event such as Helene. So, that's hard to map and figure out exactly what that event is, but we put extensive amount of time into using hydraulics and hydrology analysis to figure out what we think will be a large event similar to Helene. So, our intent is that that last event like that in at least 100 years. Right now, about 15% of the project is complete. Engineers say their next big milestone is approaching.

[00:01:52]There's one other wall top that we're going to use on this project, and that will begin in June. We already getting materials on site. The Hopefully by next month we will start drilling. The full project is expected to wrap up in the late fall of 2028. In Haywood County, North Carolina, Carolyn Mueler, WLTV News.

[00:02:13]Carolyn, thanks. And until that 2028 completion date, you can still expect it to be one lane in each direction through the gorge. So, give yourself some extra time.