U.S. Highway 12 east of Kooskia reopens after being closed for three days

U.S. Highway 12 east of Kooskia was reopened Sunday after it was blocked because of snow and debris for three days. 

According to a news release from the Idaho Transportation Department, a storm that occurred between Thursday and Friday night brought down trees and triggered an avalanche that left more than 2 feet of snow. The avalanche near milepost 136 was more than 10 feet deep and 30-40 feet wide. 

“At times that storm was dumping 3 inches of snow an hour,” Idaho Transportation Department operations engineer Jared Hopkins said in the news release. “Our operators have tirelessly worked to remove an estimated 150 fallen trees and to clear one avalanche.”

Crews also had to clear smaller snow slides that had reached the highway.

In the news release, Hopkins said that drivers should prepare for narrow lanes and patches of ice and snow. Avalanche specialists will continue to monitor the area through the winter.

Megan Jahns, spokeswoman for the transportation department, said the area is a high risk for avalanches, so it has gates to close off the highway and weather stations in the mountains. There are many risk factors for avalanches, such as the topography, which features steep slopes along the road, and heavy, wet snow that falls all at once. 

The Idaho Transportation Department closed the highway Thursday because of avalanche risk, heavy snow and falling trees. Before the storm this year, the last avalanche to reach the highway was in 2008. 

The 2008 avalanche closed U.S. Highway 12 between Lowell and Lolo Pass for15 daysafter four avalanches struck the area. One of the slides took out 80 to 100 feet of guard rail and briefly dammed the Lochsa River with 8- to 10-feet-deep snow across the river, according to theLewiston Tribune. 

Most of the time the area experiences snow slides that come from the hills and aren’t as high as avalanches, so they don’t gather the same amount of speed. The area can also get avalanches in the mountains that don’t reach the highway, according to Jahns. 

In addition to Highway 12, State Highway 64 east of Nezperce has also been reopened. The highway was closed since Jan. 3 because of drifted snow caused by high winds. 

“Basically, you can’t tell there’s a highway there,” Jahns said.