Cohoe Loop Road in Kasilof is closed in both directions until further notice.That’s after a culvert on the beach side of the road failed, causing a sinkhole to open. The state transportation department says the sinkhole is expanding under the road, which will remain closed until crews finish repair work.
Justin Shelby is the Alaska Department of Transportation’s administrative operations manager for Alaska’s central region. He says the department learned about the sinkhole Thursday evening and decided to close the road.
“The sinkhole happened – it's adjacent to the roadway, but there's the actual void that extends under the roadway,” he said. “That's why we explained it in that way, because we didn't want people to think, ‘Oh, we're just closing the roadway just because.’ It's because there's a concern that, you know, we don't want the roadway to collapse.”
On Friday, Shelby said crews haven’t determined what caused the culvert to fail. But he says water is often the culprit.
“We probably won't know until we get in there,” he said. “But typically what happens is, usually there's a cracking in the culvert or something that allows water infiltration around the culvert. But we won't really know until we get in there and dig it out. But that's typically what happens, is we get water where it doesn't belong, and it eats away around the culvert.”
Shelby said he doesn’t know exactly when the road will open, but that the work involved will likely take at least a couple of days.
“We're going to have to dig that whole culvert out,” he said. “And it's 30 feet down on one end. So it's going be a pretty extensive dig out. So I don't have a time frame on when we're going to be able to get that work done. We've got a contractor looking at it for us now, and they should be getting back to us soon on how quickly they can get deployed out there and when they anticipate getting that work completed.”
The sinkhole is near Milepost 5 of Cohoe Loop Road, close to the Beautiful Moose Bluff Inn. While repairs are underway, the state says the area can still be accessed from the north and south, but that drivers should be prepared to “take the long way around.”
Up-to-date road information is available on the department’s interactive map.
