Workers Josh Kelly, left, and Rouse Slape spray concrete onto the side of Lookout Mountain near Fort Payne, Ala., along state Highway 35 on Wednesday. The concrete, called “shotcrete,” covers the soil nails that are being drilled into the mountain to stabilize the roadway. The project, which closes one lane of traffic, will use about 37,000 linear feet of nails.
FORT PAYNE, Ala. – With million-dollar gigs around the country, nights spent away from home in motel rooms and 142 airline flights logged so far this year, Nate Beard lives a rock-star lifestyle.
Or “soil star” may be more accurate.
Beard is a senior engineer with Soil Nail Launcher Inc., a Colorado-based contracting firm that specializes in stabilizing active roadway landslides.
He’s been in Fort Payne since Dec. 10, helping nail down four slow-motion landslides downhill from a milelong stretch of Alabama Highway 35 on Lookout Mountain.
The company’s crews are inserting some 37,000 feet of soil nails — or 1.5-inch-diameter hollow steel rods — into slumping spots below the highway. Workers bolt a web of steel onto the nails and spray concrete over it to build retaining walls designed to last at least 100 years.