LOWMAN, Idaho — The Idaho Transportation Department's Avalanche team is back in Lowman making sure travelers this winter are as safe as possible along a potentially dangerous stretch of highway. You don't have to go too far from Lowman to see the immediate damage the Wapiti fire.
- Wapiti Fire's impact on Highway 21 north of Lowman.
- I.T.D.'s Avalanche team is ready for the winter.
- Daily monitoring starts on November 1.
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story)
"When the fire came through, here it was incredibly hot here and the old wooden posts and old the guardrails burned. They didn't waste any time, no we pressed hard to get the highway open again," said Bill Nicholson.
Team leader Bill Nicholson says the impact the fire has had on forest erosion and how it could impact future avalanches won't be known for years. In the meantime, his team works hard, keeping a close eye on potential threats of avalanches.
"Starting Nov. 1, we'll start recording every single storm from the snow quantity and the water weight equivalent to the snow temperatures and wind and then every day we take stress measurements on the existing snow pack and then we also spend time skiing around in these areas," Nicholson said.
This stretch of Highway 21 between Grandjean and Banner Summit is one of only three highways in the entire country that is designated as a high avalanche area. Nicholson's team recently conducted aerial assessments to evaluate changes in the corridor and says they are ready to deploy very big, powerful snow blasters that are placed high on mountain ridges overlooking the highway.
Nicholson describes how it works. "These are remote avalanche control systems with tanks of hydrogen and oxygen, and we have a laptop on the truck and we when we go to fire it. It combines the two gases and underneath is hollow so there will be a bubble of this gas and then that's detonated, and it's detonated above 10 meters above the snow pack so it sends out a real big shock wave."
And in those five to ten times during the winter Highway 21 closes because of avalanches, it's because they are monitoring the potential of a slide, not necessarily that an avalanche has covered the road.
Nicholson says they want to stay ahead of any potential slides. "A lot of times we can have the highway open when there are avalanches happening, but we are forecast they won't reach the highway. Our goal is to give the traveling public an 8 hours notice that we're going to close the road."
And motorists should be aware you are not allowed to stop along this stretch of Highway 21 during the winter. It is for your safety.
