On Wednesday, April 28, which the Montana Department of Transportation (MDT) had designated as Go Orange Day, traffic moved at a crawl on a stretch of Highway 2 just east of Zurich where MDT crews worked.

A road patrol, bulldozer, and excavator, as well as a number of smaller construction machines and trucks, labored at the culvert excavation site near mile post 413.4. The work zone was controlled with signal lights and by pilot car, with a posted speed limit of 35 mph. To allow the contractor to work safely, traffic shifted to the south onto a temporary dirt and gravel surface. This detour ha...