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March 27, 2008 - 9:43PM
Beeline Highway section gets high-tech repair
Garin Groff, Tribune
The effort to repair the Beeline Highway after a landslide damaged it is going decidedly high-tech, as sensors will soon use lasers, GPS technology and remote transmitting to constantly detect any more instability.
Beeline back open in both directions
VIDEO: Landslide repair on Route 87
VIDEO: See the damage to the road
The Arizona Department of Transportation is installing several types of equipment to check for any more problems on the major highway between Payson and the Valley.
State Route 87 reopened Thursday morning after a landslide on Friday buckled the road and made it undrivable.
Even as crews are clearing loose earth from a slope, equipment is going in place to detect shifts so small the human eye wouldn't notice anything.
Those kinds of movements could be the start of future problems. Some equipment uses cell phone technology to instantly transmit what the sensors have detected.
"They're to get those readings at very small levels of movement," ADOT spokeswoman Laura Douglas said.
Some equipment will detect changes in elevation, which could occur if more earth slides off a 100-foot slope. A laser will also scan the slope and roadway to detect movement.
Also, ADOT will drill shafts 30 feet to 40 feet deep and insert tubes that can detect movement. ADOT has dozens of similar tubes across the state to monitor unstable areas.
The measurements are vital because geologists haven't determined the precise cause of the landslide, so they don't know for sure if more earth could give way.
"Placing this into a larger geological context will help ADOT make decisions as to how they remediate that," said Michael Conway, chief of geologic extension services at the Arizona Geological Survey.
For all the technology at work, Conway said the landslide was the result of the most basic of forces, gravity.
The soil had become saturated from rain. The water turned areas of clay into a lubricant, allowing other materials to slide.
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