Visitors is being diverted on the Seward Freeway alongside Turnagain Arm after an ice wall launched early Thursday and impacted the street, the state’s transportation division mentioned.
The Alaska Division of Transportation and Public Amenities posted on Twitter that elements of an ice wall at Mile 113 fell early Thursday morning. Justin Shelby, a spokesman for the division, mentioned it left ice chunks in each lanes of the street, however that crews had been in a position to plow it away and reopen the street “fairly rapidly.” Crews had been monitoring that space and others earlier than the incident, he mentioned.
Crews arrange a visitors diversion “till circumstances enable the ice wall to re-freeze and stabilize,” the division wrote on social media. Division employees “always” monitor for potential impacts from falling ice, Shelby mentioned.
“This sort of factor will not be unusual, and it’s weather-related on this case,” he mentioned, referring to increased temperatures in Anchorage recently.
Shelby mentioned it’s vital for drivers to concentrate on the diversion, as extra ice may come down in that location. The ice wall received’t stabilize till temperatures drop and it begins to freeze once more.
So far as how lengthy that would take, Shelby mentioned it’s “a wait-and-see scenario.”