Added on March 31, 2017  The News Wheel   , , ,
No Comments

[VIDEO] Relax and Watch Boulders Blow Up on an Oregon Highway

Decrease Font Size Increase Font Size Text Size Print This Page

It has been a stressful week—let’s watch some giant stuff get blown up, shall we?

That’s Pretty Rad: Check out Chevy’s Army supertruck, the Colorado ZH2

Aaaah, that’s nice.

The above video comes to us from The Oregonian and the Oregon Department of Transportation, of the cleanup operation after a huge, 200-ton boulder slid from the hillside onto Oregon Highway 138, east of the city of Glide.

Boulders blocking the road are an unfortunate problem which tend to crop up every once in a while in Oregon, particularly in Southern Oregon, where steep slopes and weak rock, combined with heavy winter rain, tend to cause landslides. These landslides could take the form of soil falling onto the road, but every once in a while, you end up with something the size of a house blocking the way.

One such giant boulder fell back in February, when ODOT posted the following montage of images of the slide on its Facebook page.

Taking Care: Make sure to get your regular car maintenance done at the right times

Clearing these boulders creates a huge problem for the DOT. In some cases, that might entail calling in a team of laborers with heavy equipment to break up the pieces, but often involves blowing the boulders into much smaller pieces that can be cleared by bulldozers or by hand.

Unfortunately, clearing these often can be quite expensive—the heavy landslide that covered the road in February had an estimated cost of $50,000 to clear away.

If only Career Day back in grade school had included “guy who blows up giant boulders on the road for a living,” you would be staring at a blank screen right now.

News Sources: The Oregonian via YouTube, Gizmodo, Oregon DOT via Facebook