The North Carolina Department of Transportation has pushed back the reopening of a portion of Interstate 40 that was closed by a rockslide in October.

While the department had expected to finish the work in March, it has delayed the work due to harsh winter weather, and doesn't expect to reopen it until late April.

Wednesday, crews planned on completing tests on five rock bolts, weather permitting. Testing is the final step in the process. In total, 590 bolts must be installed, grouted into place and tested before the roadway can be reopened safely.

"This has been an incredibly harsh winter, and because of that, the specialty contractors have not been able to do as much work as planned," said Jon Nance, the NCDOT's chief engineer of operations.

Twenty-five inches of snow fell in the area between December 2009 and February 2010, a 250 percent increase over the historic average of 10 inches.

"If there's a silver lining in all of this," Nance added, "it's that we've located other areas that need to be repaired to prevent another occurrence like this one."

The DOT says there are five additional sites that need to be stabilized, four of which are just west of the area where the October rockslide occurred, near the Tennessee border. All five sites are within the stretch of I-40 that is now closed, so that the initial safety improvements will not impact motorists.

For daily rockslide updates, please visit the NCDOT web site at www.ncdot.gov.