Repairs to Close Scenic Highway

By John Wilson, Free Press Staff Writer

Chattanooga Free Press: March 13, 1997

One of the two main routes up Lookout Mountain will be closed later this year to repair a deteriorating section of roadway, state transportation department officials said.

Bob Brown, regional transportation director, said plans are to close Scenic Highway near the top of the mountain about the first of October. He said it is hoped the repair work will be completed before the end of the year. That will leave the Ochs Highway as the only route up the mountain.

Scenic Highway was closed several years ago for an extended period after a slide covered a section of the road near the Winterview condominiums. Sanders Road, that connects the Ochs and Scenic highways halfway up the mountain, also is closed. The National Park Service has applied for funding to repair a section of that road that is sinking near a picnic area.

Mr. Brown said a section of Scenic Highway below the Gordon Davenport home has had to be continually patched for many years. The site at a steep bluff is near the Stonedge condominiums. Mr. Brown said the patching might continue to work, but he said there is also the possibility of the roadway giving way and officials do not want to take that chance.

He said Lookout Mountain, Tenn., officials have expressed concerns about the dangers of the unstable roadway, and he has been in close contact with them. Mr. Brown said scheduling the work to begin in October will place it past the heavy tourist season and before the onset of winter. He said it is hoped blasting at the site can be avoided. He said preliminary plans call for building a retaining wall at the edge of the road.

The transportation official said another “scar” will not be created, as happened at the slide area below when a large amount of riprap was used. Plans are to put the contract out for bid at the first of September, with the work starting a few weeks later.

This story was published Thursday, March 13, 1997

For an earlier collapse on Scenic, see “Erosion closes Scenic Highway” under ARTICLES  Archives.  

For a discussion of the implications of these collapses, see “Our Fragile Mountain” by Peggy Laney in OPINION.