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CEDAR CITY — [Highway 14](<Landslide closes state Route 14 in Iron County>) in Iron County is now open after being closed for months because of a massive landslide. The road opened for traffic at 3:00 p.m. Thursday afternoon.
Highway 14 is the main road connecting Cedar City to Highway 89. But there is still a lot of work to be done before the road is fully complete, and they continue to battle last minute problems.
All day long for the past two months, crews have been getting ready for the opening. The road looks very different now than it did last October when a million cubic yards of land, rocks and trees slid down the mountain and buried the road.
"It's an economic issue for the local businesses," said Rick Holman, city manager for Cedar City. Since traffic couldn't go through the canyon, some local businesses who rely on that traffic suffered. There also isn't a very easy way to get around.
Crews started fixing the road two months ago, re-routing it in some places to get traffic going, especially for Memorial Day weekend. Now, it's ready.
"You look at how rough it was, the kind of damage that was done up there at the time, and it's amazing to see it now," said Jim McConnell with the Utah Department of Transportation.
Even though the road is open again now, crews are still dealing with some slides. In fact, just a few days ago, there was another slide in the area that impacted Cedar City's water supply."
"It just broke that cast iron pipe and so its just running down the creek bed now," Holman said.
The road will be open around the clock on Fridays and weekends, but crews are still working. So, Monday through Thursday, it will only be open at night from 7:00 p.m. until 7:00 a.m.
The city was able to connect residents to secondary water supplies, so no one is out of water, but still, the slide is causing Cedar City to miss out on a million and a half gallons of water a day.
"We've talked with UDOT, and we're confident they're going to help us figure out how we can get that spring back into our system," Holman said.
Cameras have been set up on the road project taking a picture every few minutes in order to record any further land movement. But for now, crews are just concentrating on making sure traffic can safely get through. A few hours before opening drivers were already lining up.
The road will be open around the clock on Fridays and weekends, but crews are still working. So, Monday through Thursday, it will only be open at night from 7:00 p.m. until 7:00 a.m.
