In October of 2009, a massive landslide in the Nile Valley, near Yakima, Washington, took out a portion of Washington SR 410 and impacted the Naches River as well. This video from WSDOT shows what emergency response was required to get temporary traffic restored on a detour and get a more permanent detour constructed.
Failures
Rabbits causing landslides on tiny Scottish island
Thousands of cute, cuddly rabbits like the one pictured here are having quite an impact on the Scottish Island of Canna. These critters, estimated to number around 16,000 (compared to the human population of 12 […]
Geologic Hazards
U.S. 89 Landslide Exploration
Specialty drilling contractor Crux Subsurface recently completed geotechnical drilling for Kleinfelder at the site of a large landslide near Page, Arizona. Crux completed 17 holes to depths up to 250 feet using a combination of […]
Geologic Hazards
US 89 Bitter Springs Landslide Video Updates
Since I last posted about this landslide, ADOT has added several videos to their YouTube channel. It’s clear that this highway is going to be closed for the long term. ADOT and their on-call geotechnical consultant tasked with this project, Kleinfelder, are currently drilling boreholes to attempt to characterize the failure surface and determine what the geometry of the failure surface is. They are installing at least 10 inclinometers to try to determine the location of the slip plane or planes at depth and they have two extensometers to measure if any additional movement occurs. They are also performing LIDAR surveys as well. Check out the videos below.
Initial ADOT Video Describing the Failure
Click through for the videos!