DOT closes Dalton after snowmelt-swollen Sagavanirktok River damages; repairs, reopens highway Wednesday
The Sag River has again washed-out a stretch of the Dalton Highway, this time near Deadhorse. The state Transportation Department closed the highway Tuesday night and reopened it on Wednesday to one lane of traffic only.
DOT spokesperson Kaitlin Williams says workers began hauling in rock Tuesday to protect the Dalton from further damage by the river. It had already cut away more than half of the roadbed around milepost 404.
“We had crews in the area that were working in an attempt to keep that from happening,” Williams said Thursday. “However, it succumbed to the natural forces of the river.”
The Sagavanirktok aka Sag River is running high because of snowmelt runoff from the upper river basin. Williams says that makes is hard to predict when DOT will be able to reopen both lanes of the highway, which leads to Alaska’s main oil complex at Prudhoe Bay .
“We are working late into the evening with contractors,” she said, “and we’re delivering additional material to the area to reinforce the embankment.”
The Sag River flows alongside the highway for about 75 miles, from its headwaters in the Brooks Range to Deadhorse and on to where it empties into the Beaufort Sea. Breakup flooding has forced closure of the Dalton twice in recent years, in 2015 and again two years later.
The 2017 repairs require a contractor to rebuild a 17-mile section that had been repaired and improved in 2015.
Williams said the river also flood-damaged the Dalton in 2016. She encouraged drivers headed up the Dalton to check DOT’s traveler-information website, 511.alaska.gov., or by calling 511.
