They'll work like ants to get I40 passable again but it won't be fast. Long haul trucking will need to find another pass, much further north, and a LOT in the US is transported via semi-truck. (Meanwhile to get I40 up, workers are pulled off local roads, with people trapped up mountains.)

All of all of this. A lot of family and friends are in SWVA and I’m on tenterhooks worrying about them… (everyone seems okay but just the fallout is going to be massive).

The Appalachians are extraordinarily beautiful, a truly unique place. The feds consider Appalachians to be an officially recognized ethnic minority, in fact--and a poverty-stricken one. One's mountain, one's valley, is an ancestral home. They've lost a lot they absolutely could not afford to lose.