Trucks still have to wait

Temporary solution on the Arlberg: will traffic soon be moving again?

Trail of devastation on the Arlberg Pass.

(Bild: picturedesk.com/Bernd Hofmeister)

The repair work following the mudslides and flash floods in the Arlberg region will probably keep the emergency services and road maintenance companies busy for days and weeks to come. In St. Anton, the main affected area, dredging and pumping will continue on Monday - a "temporary solution" has now been set up on the closed Arlberg Pass. The road will be reopened overnight - but not for trucks.

As of Monday afternoon, the Arlberg federal highway or pass road (B197) was still closed. On the Vorarlberg side, a temporary solution has now been put in place at the washed-out section, according to Vorarlberg's regional safety councillor Christian Gantner (ÖVP).

A decision on whether to open the road connection, which is currently important due to the closure of the Arlberg tunnel (renovation), was then made in the afternoon at a meeting of the emergency management team.

Parts of the roadway were torn away.

(Bild: picturedesk.com/Bernd Hofmeister)

Roadway partially torn away
A mudslide, which had started on the Vorarlberg side before St. Christoph am Arlberg (Tyrol), had displaced the entire carriageway of the Arlberg road on Friday evening. The road was heavily washed out and part of the lane towards Tyrol was torn away over a length of around 60 meters.

Gantner told APA that the clean-up and repair work had begun immediately and a temporary solution had been erected and asphalted over the weekend.

Waiting for the green light from Tyrol
According to the provincial councillor, traffic, including heavy goods vehicles, can now pass again in one lane and presumably with traffic lights. However, consultations in Tyrol had to be awaited before the road could be opened.

After a meeting in the Landeck district administration, the emergency management team met at 1 pm to decide on the next steps. 

General traffic allowed to move at night, trucks not yet
A decision was then made at around 3.15 pm. "Thanks to a joint effort, the B197 Arlbergstraße has been repaired to such an extent that the local operations management can reopen the pass road to traffic, at least at night. During the day, the road will remain closed until further notice," said the state of Tyrol in a press release. In concrete terms: "The Arlbergstraße is therefore only open to general traffic between 8 pm and 7 am. From 7 am to 8 pm, the road is closed to all traffic. The existing restrictions for heavy traffic due to the closure of the Arlberg tunnel will remain in place during the night-time opening."

This regulation will initially apply until the end of the week. The situation will be reassessed on Friday.

Clean-up work continues at full speed
In St. Anton on the Tyrolean side, which was mainly affected, the clean-up work continued at full speed on Monday. 

"We worked through the night again", said Peter Mall from the crisis team. 250 emergency personnel are on site, clearing out the debris basins and repairing houses.

However, the work was "not finished on Friday, these are major projects", he noted. Unnecessary journeys in the region should be avoided as far as possible, he appealed.

However, there was no fear of renewed landslides, said Mall. It had only rained lightly during the night and there was no precipitation on Monday morning. With the improvement in the weather, the forecast is also good.