Westbound Green River Tunnel May Not Reopen Until Next Winter

The Green River Tunnel on westbound Interstate 80 will take at least another week to clean up and months to repair, the Wyoming Department of Transportation reports.

It’s been more than a month since a devastating 26-vehicle Valentine’s Day crash killed three people and sent thick, black smoke pouring out of the tunnel. 

In the weeks since, getting the burned-up and destroyed vehicles out has cleared the way for the next phase of cleanup, which will begin Monday, WYDOT reports. 

That’s when concrete and debris from the damaged tunnel will be removed, as well as “extensive cleaning and disposal of soot, oil and miscellaneous contaminants in the tunnel,” the report says.

That should take about a week, which will then allow engineers inside to do a more extensive evaluation of how damaged the tunnel is and what repairs need to be made.

Just how long until the westbound tunnel could be open again isn’t known, but plans are “to have repairs underway by this summer and to have traffic moving in the westbound tunnel once again before the winter season,” the agency reports.

In the days after the crash, stories of the terrifying scene inside the tunnel emerged. They included harrowing video and descriptions from those who escaped the inferno sparked by the chain-reaction collision.

A trucker who narrowly escaped shared video he took of his escape and described the horror inside. In the video, screams can be heard from drivers who say they are burning up.

The trucker kicks out the windshield of his semitrailer to escape, while other vehicles in the crash and possibly a fire is blurry in the background. 

Stuck

While the evaluation and repairs continue, the southwest Wyoming town of Green River will continue to see more truck and highway traffic as people avoid driving through the one-lane detour through the eastbound side of the tunnel.

It’s been noticeable, especially last week when the detour was closed, said Steve Core, spokesman for the city.

“You know, the traffic pattern to me appears to be more eastbound coming through town,” Core told Cowboy State Daily. “It seems like the eastbound drivers are trying to avoid (the detour).”

Last week, the eastbound tunnel was closed as well for the detour, which caused a nightmare for the city, Core said.

“It really caused a major back-up,” he said. “It was backed up for miles. I came back to Green River last Saturday from Rock Springs. I left Rock Springs at 1 o’clock and I didn’t get to my house until a little after 2 o’clock.”

It was especially bad last weekend when Rock Springs hosted a regional high school basketball tournament and a semitrailer crash closed off the interstate.

The traffic was so snarled that the Green River teams couldn’t get home afterward just a few miles down the road, Core said.

“All the Green River fans basically got stuck in Rock Springs because the interstate was closed because of a couple of jack-knifed semitrucks,” he said. “People living in Green River coming to watch their kids play actually had to get motel rooms and spend the night.”

That Timeline

While getting the westbound tunnel open by next winter may seem like a long time for repairs, Core said that’s pretty much what he and the city expected.

“We were not surprised by that timeline,” he said. “We were hoping it would be quicker, but we’re not surprised.

“We were thinking six to eight months based on the reports that we had from the fire department that had been inside the tunnel and saw how badly damaged it was.”

While he hasn’t been inside the tunnel since the crash, Core said it’s always on his mind. In fact, he can see it from his house.

“I’ve lived here for over 40 years, and I don’t recall when you couldn’t get from Green River to Rock Springs,” he said. “That so crazy.”

In the meantime, I-80 continues to be a major east-west commerce route across Wyoming, bringing 18,000 vehicles a day through a single lane each way at the Green River Tunnel.

And while that can be difficult for Green River with extra truck traffic on its residential roads, locals are dealing with it, Core said.

“I don’t hear a lot of people complaining about it,” he said. “It’s just what it is, and there’s not much you can do.”

Greg Johnson can be reached at greg@cowboystatedaily.com.