Video: Seattle residents warned to be ready for landslides

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SEATTLE – Homeowners are being warned to prepare for landslides as another storm approaches Western Washington. Just how much mud and rock decides to head downhill this season will depend on just how much rain we get.

Landslides are a form of erosion, but in a city like Seattle, city engineers say 86 percent of those slides have some sort of human involvement. It can be as simple as somebody living at the top of a slope and allowing their downspouts to drain too much water in the wrong place.

Mike Welch lives below an active slide zone. He watched as one came down two years ago.

“They just sunk a bunch of pilings along here to try and stop it and they hung burlap sacks up here and put grass seed on it to try and stop it,” said Welch.

Like much of the waterfront property around Seattle, there are bluffs abound, many of which are steep and have the potential to slide.

Last week, there was already a slide along the Burke Gilman Trail in North Seattle.

In recent years, there has been a system set up which, depending on the amount of rain we get and how quickly we get it, we can be over the threshold for slides.

Right now, we’re already over that threshold.

“Last week, we had quite a bit of rainfall. I believe in one day we had a little over two inches of rain, and what that’s setting us up for is starting to saturate the ground. We’re above the landslide threshold so another strong storm could trigger a few slides,” said City of Seattle engineer Bill Benzer.

The good news is that the rain from last week has let up, giving the ground a chance to dry out.

The bad news is the saturation is a cumulative process, so if there are long stretches of rain day-after-day, it increases the chances of landslides.

WSDOT

A rockslide on Chuckanut Drive shut down the road between Burlington and Bellingham on Friday, Nov. 7, 2008.

Rockslide threat closes Chuckanut Drive

The Transportation Department says Chuckanut Drive remains closed by the threat of a rockslide.

The department says the scenic waterfront section of Highway 11 between Burlington and Bellingham will be closed indefinitely. Officials had hoped to open it Monday.

Crews cleared the slide that hit the highway Friday and have been working to stabilize that hillside. Then they discovered movement on another slope near the Skagit-Whatcom county line that will have to be inspected and stabilized.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.