The Story Behind That Amazing Rockslide Video

   Do you ever wonder at the vagaries of time?

   Last Sunday, I was driving up Highway 64 to get some Mercier Apples.  Traffic was light this time, because TVA was diverting water out of the Ocoee.  Nothing was coming over Ocoee #2, but water was thundering into the flume.

  40 hours later, a boulder the size of my car rolled down on the highway in front of that dam.

  6 hours after that, our News crew of Bill Mitchell and Allen Fairbanks were standing on that highway, staring up at where the boulder came from.

  15 minutes after that, the side of the mountain came sliding down on where my car was two days earlier, and where my crew was just a few moments before.

  You've seen the video.  People all over the country have seen that video.   And we're proud that the best view of this came from WDEF, News 12.

  The experts tell us that few people see a slide of this size in person.  And even fewer have caught them on video.  So this is the story of how it happened.

  On Tuesday morning, work crews were in the road breaking up the boulder that came down around 6 AM.  TDOT's geologist was driving over from Nashville to take a look at it for herself.  Media crews were coming and going.

  Last night, I got Bill and Allen to sit down and tell the story in their own words.  They'll pick up the story from there.

  Let me point out here that Bill & Allen were set up about 20 yards from where the slide came down.  You can briefly see them out in front in the Times Free Press video of the slide (of course, our TV competitors have tried to crop them out of the Free Press video they are running).

Now Bill & Allen tackle the questions they've gotten since.. How dangerous was it and how did they get the shot?

Allen's Rockslide video has made newscast all over the country.  And the newscasters had some fun with it.  Here are a couple of examples from the CBS Early Show and CNN.

On Wednesday, The Weather Channel came up to take a look at the slide for themselves.  They used our video in their story and even talked to Allen live on the air from the scene Wednesday morning.

One other thing that Bill and Allen left out of their account.  After the earth quit moving, Bill looked at Allen and asked him if he got it.  When Allen gave him the thumbs up, they were bouncing around like little boys!