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The Tennessee Department of Transportation will close part of the Interstate 40 rock slide detour to make repairs to north and southbound bridges carrying Interstate 81 in Greene County.
Work on the two bridges 33 miles south of the intersection of interstates 26 and 81 will be done at night and over two weekends, which makes it unlikely to cause problems in the Asheville area, N.C. Highway Patrol trooper Gene Williamson said.
Crews will work on steel support beams between 10 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. Sunday starting with the southbound bridge. The same shift will be repeated starting Nov. 21 on the northbound bridge. Traffic will be detoured using U.S. 11E.
Crews rehabilitating the overpasses this summer found the cracks.
The rock slide three miles east of the Tennessee line has forced a detour sending westbound traffic on I-40 to future Interstate 26 west toward Johnson City and then I-81 south.
Rain at the slide Tuesday kept crews from continuing to clear boulders piled 150 feet high, a job expected to take at least four months just to get two lanes open on the eastbound side.
An additional 20,000 cars that had used I-40 near the slide area are now using I-81.
The Tennessee highway department said Tuesday that it believes the cracks developed sometime after the last bridge inspection in 2008.

More rock slides

Two more rock slides Tuesday will frustrate North Carolina motorists trying to get to the Chattanooga area.
The slides on U.S. 64 in Polk County, Tenn., happened near the Ocoee 2 Dam, according to the Tennessee highway department. The road could be closed for more than a week.
Travelers from North Carolina should take U.S. 74 to SR 68 north at Ducktown through McMinn County then on to Interstate 75 at Sweetwater in Monroe County. Residents in WNC could see more motorists trying to avoid the I-81 area completely by taking U.S. 25-70 to Hot Springs and on to I-40 in Newport, Tenn