U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg surveys I-40 damage in East Tennessee

COCKE COUNTY, Tenn. ( WATE ) — U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg traveled to East Tennessee Thursday to see the flooding damage on Interstate 40 caused by Hurricane Helene.

When the storm struck the region late last month , a part of I-40 near the Tennessee-North Carolina border washed away into the Pigeon River. The section of roadway between Exit 440 and the North Carolina state line has been closed since .

In addition to connecting the two states, the roadway serves as the route to many popular tourist destinations like the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the rafting community in Hartford and Pigeon Forge.

“We know that so many families depend on that, that economy that revolves around the natural beauty and the visitors that it draws,” Buttigieg said.

This, along with businesses using the route to ship goods, is why Buttigieg is making I-40’s reopening a priority.

“Getting these interstates restored is crucial. It’s important for the economic lifeblood of the region. It’s important for the other recovery and restoration activities, it’s hard to get to those smaller communities while these arteries are unavailable,” he said.

Buttigieg and the Federal Highway Administration are working closely with TDOT to make repairs as efficiently as possible.

“Start with things like stabilizing these slopes, but then lead to the longer term restoration and along this route. Especially when you look at the number of bridges that have been impacted and even destroyed, some of them will be restored just the way they were. Some of them might need to be restored in a way that looks a little different than how it did in the past. Those are exactly the processes that our teams are working to support,” he said.

The Federal Highway Administration announced $32 million for Tennessee roadway repairs earlier this month, however, Buttigieg said bipartisan support will be needed to fully fund repairs.

“We’re also going to need help from Congress, and my hope and expectation is that Congress will act in a bipartisan fashion to provide more of the funding that’s needed,” he said. “As I said, we’ve put forward $32 million to Tennessee and $100 million to North Carolina just so far, but we know that the ultimate price tag just on the transportation side alone will be in the billions.”

I-26 in Unicoi County also suffered damage from flooding. Both I-26 and I-40 are expected to reopen in the coming days, with one lane going in each direction through the affected areas.

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