Photo courtesy of the National Park Service.
Floods!
According to The Knoxville News, part of U.S. 441 (Newfound Gap Road) washed away on Wednesday on the North Carolina side of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The road is expected to be closed for an extended period of time.
According to The Hiking in the Smokies blog, the gap in the road is now almost the length of a football field. It occurred when this week’s rain caused a landslide. The gap is located between Collins Creek and the Webb Overlook, not far from Cherokee, N.C.
According to the National Park Service (NPS), park staff expect that Newfound Gap Road will be open to visitors form the Gatlinburg Entrance in Tennessee to Newfound Gap parking lot soon.
As of midnight on Tuesday, the park received 8.56 inches of rain. Rivers and streams have been running fast and high since Sunday when the rains began.
For the most up-to-date information on the Great Smoky Mountain National Park’s roads, call 865-436-1200 x 531 or follow SmokiesRoadsNPS on Twitter.