Rock slide at Ferguson Project being evaluated

A rock slide near Ferguson Ridge on Highway 140 this week did not affect any motorists and is not expected to delay work on a protective shed, Caltrans said.

The slide occurred sometime between Wednesday night and Thursday morning in the work zone closed off for the Ferguson Project, spokeswoman Angela DePrato said.

The slide affected some of the cable-net drapery being used for the project, but “it isn’t going to cause any major problems,” DePrato said.

Caltrans teams will assess the impact of the slide to determine whether they will need to adjust the project schedule, she said.

The $133 million project on the western approach to Yosemite National Park is expected to be completed by 2019. The work will create a nearly 800-foot-long rock shed to protect a part of the highway where thousands of tons of rock debris buried part of the road in 2006. The rock shed will be only the second of its kind in California. The first opened last year along Highway 1 near Big Sur and is less than half the length of the structure planned in the Merced River Canyon.

This story was originally published November 20, 2015 at 3:48 PM with the headline "Rock slide at Ferguson Project being evaluated."