The temperature was pushing the upper 90’s, maybe even a 100 degrees, at 4 PM when I unloaded my tools on Sunday afternoon at the Gatlinburg entrance sign. Fortunately, there was some shade.

The car hit the northeast corner on June 6 and pushed the broken wall into the middle. Lots of stones were still held together by mortar. The first step was to chip off all of the mortar leaving clean stone so they could be reused. I had brought several 5-gallon buckets, hammers, chisels, and a broom. I got started.

A little later I was joined by Vic and his young son Zane, who live on Suzanne Drive near the Dove Haven end. Vic also brought his own special hammer. When Dana who lives at 1202 Gatlinburg also arrived with his tools we really got down to work.

On the sixth, Dana heard the crash and came out to watch while the police arrested the woman driver who was pretty drunk, he thought. Apparently, she also had left the scene of a previous accident and drove into Gatlinburg to avoid police.  See earlier post for more pictures of the damage.

After two hours, we had a pile of clean stones and about 8 buckets of rubble and mortar to haul away. It was hot work and the ice water brought over by Billie Ratliff really hit the spot.

We estimated that GNA will need to find more stones and several bags of mortar, but that we can reconstruct the wall without to much difficulty. We want to file a claim with the driver’s insurance company to recoup our costs.

We also discussed protecting the wall with concrete-filled pipes at each corner. How deep in the ground and tall would these have to be to work? Would they look ugly? How much would it cost in time and materials? If you have an opinion, write a comment or come to our Gatlinburg Get Together on June 21, 3 to 5 PM at the Recreation Center.