Mudslide Jackson Wyoming....... Mudslide

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[FONT=Verdana,Sans-serif]Apr 19, 2:25 AM (ET)
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20140419/DAD91DQO0.html


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This aerial image provided by Tributary Environmental shows a home damaged by a landslide Friday, April 18, 2014 in Jackson, Wyo. A slow-moving landslide in Jackson sped up significantly Friday, splitting this house in two, causing a huge uplift in a road and a Walgreens parking lot, and threatening to destroy several other unoccupied homes and businesses. (AP Photo/Tributary Environmental) NO SALES


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[FONT=Verdana,Sans-serif]Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All right reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.[/FONT]

By MATTHEW BROWN and MEAD GRUVER

JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) - A sudden lurch in a creeping landslide in the northwest Wyoming resort town of Jackson split a house in two and forced workers to abandon just-begun efforts to stabilize the hillside.
A huge crack in the ground that had opened up under the house a couple weeks ago shifted several feet downhill in less than a day, breaking off a room or two and leaving a door swinging above the precipice. Rocks and dirt tumbled down in an almost constant stream and a geologist warned much bigger chunks could fall. The ground had been moving at a rate of an inch a day.
"As it starts to get moving, it will start to get faster," George Machan, a landslide specialist consulting for the town, said at a town meeting Friday.
Still, Machan said the ground was unlikely to liquefy and collapse suddenly like the March 22 landslide in Oso, Wash., that killed 39 people.
More likely, large blocks of earth would tumble down piece by piece, he said, perpetuating the drawn-out threat to four homes on the hill and to two apartment buildings and four businesses below.
Town officials first noticed significant hill movement April 4. They evacuated 42 homes and apartment units April 9.
Between Thursday night and Friday morning, the shifting earth had bulged a road and a parking lot at the foot of the hill by as much as 10 feet. The groundswell pushed a small town water pump building 15 feet toward West Broadway, the town's main drag.
Efforts to slow the slide - such as pouring rock and dirt fill behind large, L-shaped concrete barriers arranged in a line at the base of the slide - were on hold to keep workers out of the danger zone.
"It's really not safe to put people out there. You try to do what you can, but at some point you're really restricted from entering the area," Machan said.
On a town webcam, pedestrians could be seen pausing in the rain now and then to gawk at the slide zone that's as big as three or four football fields. Cars and trucks on West Broadway also slowed occasionally, the cause of at least one fender-bender Friday and a police warning for lollygaggers.
"Everybody's looking over there instead of looking where they're driving," Lt. Cole Nethercott said.
On Monday, town officials lifted the evacuation for residents of about 30 homes outside the high-risk zone but said they couldn't drive on the neighborhood street. They've had to walk to and from home by cutting across private property.
On Friday, not even work crews could drive on Budge Drive, which was buckled several feet.
Town officials said they didn't know what was causing the slide but noted the area has seen considerable road-grading over the past few decades. The latest work was last year's construction of the Walgreens drug store, which opened in January.
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Mead Gruver reported from Cheyenne.

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http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2014/0...tate-landslides-Natural-or-human-caused-video

Wyoming, Washington State landslides: Natural or human-caused? (+video at link )

Landslides are a natural occurrence, but human activities can trigger them as well. Scientists are looking for causes of a landslide in Wyoming as well as one in Washington State that killed at least 39 people.

By Brad Knickerbocker
April 20, 2014


video >> Geologist Dr. Daniel J. Miller of Earth Systems Institute in Ballard, Seattle, explains how prior landslides have plagued the area in Oso, Snohomish county, leading up to the deadly March 22nd landslide.



Landslides are a common occurrence, a function of geology, seismic activity, erosion caused by heavy rainfall, changes in temperature, changes in groundwater, wildfire, and other natural events

The Christian Science Monitor
Weekly Digital Edition

But human activities can trigger landslides as well: commercial and residential development, logging, mining, road-building, and water diversions among them.

That may have been the case in this weekend’s landslide in Jackson, Wyo., and in an earlier, massive slide in Oso, Wash., that killed at least 39 people with four more still unaccounted for.

President Obama is scheduled to visit the rural Washington State community on Tuesday. He’ll meet with victims, first responders, and recovery workers who continue to look for remains of the missing where a huge mudslide crossed the North Fork of the Stillaguamish River and roared through the town of Oso.


The Wyoming slide has been happening – so far, at least – in slow motion over the past two weeks.

It has sheared one hillside home in half, and it threatens more homes and businesses in its potential path. A road and parking lot have ruptured, and the residents of 42 houses and apartments have been ordered to evacuate.

Experts are unsure how long the hill will continue to move, although they don’t expect it to come thundering down like the mudslide in Washington.

"Is it weeks, is it longer? I really don't know," landslide specialist George Machan said at a town meeting Friday. "I think it's really unpredictable how long it might take. I don't expect it to end in a day."

Both natural and human causes may have combined to start the slide.

Authorities are looking into whether recent construction at the foot of East Gros Ventre Butte made the slope unstable. They say there could be a variety of other causes, including prior construction at the site.

The area has been graded for roads and businesses in recent years, including a new Walgreens. That could have weakened the hillside and set the stage for its collapse.

Meanwhile, warmer weather and a wet winter that put more water into the ground, likely acted as a lubricant for unstable rocks and soil, which happens throughout the Rocky Mountain region.

"As more people move into more mountainous environments, the opportunities for interactions between human infrastructure and people, and landslides, increase,” said David Montgomery, a geology professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. "When you add it up, it's actually a major geological hazard.”

Oso, Washington, in the Pacific Northwest is a rural area with a much small population than Jackson, heavily forested and with more rainfall. Residents include retirees, vacation-home owners, those who commute to nearby towns, and loggers.

Questions are being raised about logging there and how it might have contributed to the slide.

The hillside in and around the slide area, which slopes steeply down toward the river, has seen much clear-cut logging over the years.

Landslides have followed logging in that area at least four times.

"There was cutting in the 1940s; it failed in the '50s. There was cutting in 1960, then it failed in the mid-'60s. There was cutting in '88; it failed in '91. There was cutting in 2005, and it failed in 2006 and in 2014,” geomorphologist Paul Kennard told KUOW radio station in Seattle.

Media reporting since the slide on March 22 reveals that authorities knew about but failed to fully heed the warnings of scientists that such a disaster was a real threat.

Authorities considered – but then rejected – a suggestion that they buy out home and business owners whose properties lay just across the Stillaguamish River from a steep hill that had fallen away several times before. The Seattle Times newspaper reported that Snohomish County officials analyzed the situation, finding that the costs of a buyout “would be significant, but would remove the risk to human life and structures.”

Instead, they decided to build a wall intended to stabilize the slope, leaving existing structures in place and allowing more to be built.

Robin Youngblood, who was saved by helicopter after her home was destroyed, said she hopes to speak with the President when he visits Tuesday, if only to convey that laws need to change to ensure homes aren’t built in such risky areas, or that residents are warned when they are.

“People need to be given exact knowledge of whatever dangers they may be facing,” she said. “Nobody should have been living there.”

This report includes material from the Associated Press.

 

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDvlzGV4tsw

Apr 19, 2014 Jeremy and Sara Budge's home continues to break apart Saturday as a creeping landslide moves down East Gros Ventre Butte. The slide has cut off access to a 60-person neighborhood, threatened town utilities, including a water line, and fascinated spectators who have gathered on West Broadway to witness the slow-motion disaster.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dfqnFtvG6w

Apr 17, 2014 Thursday, April 17th was an extremely active day for movement in the Budge Drive slide area. This time-lapse video captures the drastic and stunning changes of the hillside that occurred during daylight hours.