A hill slide on Arkansas 23 in Franklin County could close the Pig Trail Scenic Byway for months and affect travel from the north to two music festivals on Mulberry Mountain in June -- Wakarusa on June 4-7 and Thunder on the Mountain on June 26-28.
The Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department officially closed the highway Wednesday. The slide has undermined the foundation of the highway for about 700 linear feet along Fly Gap Mountain north of Cass.
Fred Mullen, the emergency management director for Franklin County, said he expects the highway to be closed for months while the repair work is assessed, bid and completed.
Mullen said there are about 10 "big cracks" in the highway, about 8 inches wide and appearing to be feet deep.
"You could run a truck tire off down in the cracks," he said.
Danny Straessle, a spokesman for the Highway Department, said the work will take "several weeks, but that could stretch into months."
"We've got a geotechnical engineering team out there today seeing if the slide is still in progress," he said Thursday. "This is one of those, there will be no quick fix."
Straessle said there are cracks in both lanes of the highway, and they're not superficial cracks in the surface.
"It is the material underneath the road that is supporting it in place," he said.
The closure includes 3.2 miles of Arkansas 23 between the Mulberry Mountain Lodge (on the south end) and Fly Gap Road (to the north). The slide location is about 19 miles north of Interstate 40 and 5.5 miles north of Cass.
The music festivals are held at the Mulberry Mountain site. Arkansas 23 is closed just to the north.
Dewey Patton, events director at Mulberry Mountain Lodging & Events, said he is trying to get the Highway Department to fix Arkansas 23 before Wakarusa.
"We are trying to express the extreme urgency of the situation," he said.
Patton said the annual Wakarusa festival attracts about 20,000, while the Thunder on the Mountain country music festival brought in 8,000 when it was last held in 2013.
If the slide isn't repaired before the festivals take place, people still can access the venue from the south by taking the Ozark exit off I-40 and driving north on Arkansas 23 from there.
But for people coming from points north, that could mean a longer trip. For someone in Brashears, the 9-mile drive down Arkansas 23 to the festival instead will be an 84-mile drive through Clarksville, according to the Highway Department's shortest recommended detour.
Those traveling from Fayetteville will drive about 97 miles instead of the usual 39 miles to the festival. That's based on the Highway Department's recommended detour of Interstate 49 south to I-40, then I-40 east to Arkansas 23 and north from there.
Mullen said he doesn't encourage people to take gravel roads unless they have four-wheel drive and know where they're going. Cellphone service is spotty in the rugged Ozark Mountains, and creeks could be flooded, he said.
GPS often tells motorists that logging roads are passable when they're not, Mullen said.
One day, emergency workers in Franklin County pulled a dozen vehicles off Whiting Mountain Road, a jeep trail where they had gotten stuck while following GPS, said Mullen. One woman had been stuck for about eight hours.
"She had written out her will while she was waiting on us," he said.
Rebecca Venkauskas, a spokesman for Wakarusa, said she had no comment Thursday about the road closure.
"We have been in contact with state and county authorities today and will share information with the public as soon as we can," she said via email.
More than 700 vehicles normally travel the rural Arkansas 23 north of Cass daily. But during the festival, traffic increases significantly.
Headliners for Wakarusa include Thievery Corporation and Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals. The main acts for Thunder on the Mountain are Carrie Underwood and the Zac Brown Band. Both festivals are produced by Pipeline Productions of Lawrence, Kan.
Wakarusa has been held in Franklin County since 2009. This is the second year for the Thunder on the Mountain country music festival after taking a hiatus in 2014.
Straessle said the slide occurred 0.6 of a mile to the south from a similar slide after heavy rains in 2008. That area of Arkansas 23 was repaired at a cost of about $2.5 million and a scenic overlook was added. The highway was closed for months during the work.
Mullen said it's common for hills to slide south after heavy rains in the karst terrain of the Ozarks.
"It's kind of an every-few-years type of event," he said. "Rain soaks it up, traffic vibrations shake it, and it's kind of like Jello. Then it breaks apart when you vibrate it."
Metro on 05/22/2015