Friday traffic on route 7 south - between Toronto and Steubenville- is restricted to one lane. The problem was a land slip sent a boulder onto the highway. It happened just after 12:30pm. Truck Driver Paul Black was on his way to Weirton Steel to make a pick up. But, something happened that he says he's never seen in his 33 years of truck driving.

According to Black, "There was a red car in front of me and all of sudden rocks started coming off the side of the hill." He goes on to explain, "The small rocks hit that car, and that big one came out in front of me and I hit a sizeable chunk."

To give you an idea how big the boulder was, it stood about 12 feet high and 15 feet wide - about the size of a mini-van. O-DOT officials believe the rock came clear from the top of the hill, which is well over 100 feet in height.

O-DOT's county manager Lois Wright says, this happened as a result of severely saturated land. Crews worked for several hours to clear the smaller rocks out of the way. In the process, they closed one lane of Route 7 South for about 1 mile.

O-DOT officials say, it may be a couple of days before the enormous bolder is completely removed. Now even though the lanes are clear, the right lane of Route 7 south is still expected to be closed until contractors can remove the boulder off of the side of the road.

PAUL SPRADLEY, News 9