YOUR AD HERE »

Vehicle access restored for Montezuma residents with daytime restrictions

Montezuma residents now can drive in and out of the town one week after the Snake River washed out a 45-foot section of Montezuma Road and destroyed sections of another half mile of road.

Local residents will be allowed to drive a single-lane emergency bypass and temporary bridge starting 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 10.

The road will close again at 7 a.m. Wednesday through 7 p.m., so crews can continue repair work during the day. Residents also will be allowed to drive in and out at noon Wednesday. Traffic lights at both ends of the construction zone will assist traffic in both directions with 3.5-minute red lights.



Summit Stage shuttle service between the roadblock and the washout site will continue until further notice at 8 a.m., noon and 5 p.m.

“For a project of this magnitude, we would normally start planning and budgeting about two years out, and construction would take place over a period of weeks or months,” assistant county manager Thad Noll said in a news release. “In an emergency, you don’t have that luxury, so we accomplished all of it in seven days.”



The washout Tuesday, June 3, cut off travel to and from the town. County workers began clearing the road of rock and other debris Tuesday to make voluntary evacuations from the town possible. Crews also removed a blocked culvert impeding the flow of the Snake River.

On Wednesday, June 4, crews began building an emergency road to bypass the washout and installed a footbridge upstream. A 15-ton emergency bridge retrieved from Jackson County was set over the river late Friday, and crews have since worked to make the bridge and road safe for vehicle use.


Support Local Journalism

Support Local Journalism

As a Summit Daily News reader, you make our work possible.

Summit Daily is embarking on a multiyear project to digitize its archives going back to 1989 and make them available to the public in partnership with the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection. The full project is expected to cost about $165,000. All donations made in 2023 will go directly toward this project.

Every contribution, no matter the size, will make a difference.