Wyoming Evacuees Keep Wary Eyes on Slow Slide

Officials in Jackson were aware a year ago that the hillside was shifting and had installed equipment to monitor the movement, Assistant Town Manager Roxanne Robinson said Friday.

"We acknowledged the hillside had some sloughing up. But there wasn't anything drastic until this past Friday," she said.

The movement increased and broke a water line last week. A crack appeared atop a steep slope overlooking the businesses below and the call to evacuate the 46 homes and apartment units on Budge Drive — a quiet lane that snakes partway up the foot of East Gros Ventre Butte — came Wednesday.

News Source

Seems like it's not just Yellowstone National park that is seeing weird things.

A rather large, eroded hill in Jackson, Wy is threatening businesses and homes in the area.

Presently, residents are evacuated. One home is being torn apart, and many others are threatened.

This has been an ongoing issues for the last year, a threat, so to speak that the hill could have a slide, and equipment was placed to monitor it.

Last week, water lines were snapped, and things started slipping.

Crazy, ever changing world we live in, eh?

No photos ?

Pic, one of the hill here, with more info.
image shows Budge Dr. below the slopes of East Gros Ventre Butte.

Very luck to have caught it in time. Though, looks like that wasn't safe for a while now-more than a year? Sad to have to leave everything behind and of course sadder still the losses that would bring, but until there's a solution what can be done, don't want a repeat of Oso, Wash. More places are questioning safety of similar areas now, at least, being long over due apparently, kinda repeat of the more recent bridge collapses due to older infrastructure.

candlestick
No photos ?

Sorry, I didn't see any in the link.

I live 4 hours from Jackson, but no car.. it's a long walk..

Seems the person below you has found some tho..

Thanks, Dreamingawake.

reply to post by Cygnis

I live here in Jackson..... a new Walgreens was built at the bottom of one of our buttes, and it was necessary to remove part of the hillside to do so. It was, in a lot of people's opinion, a stupid place to build in the first place. The hillside there has always had rocks tumbling off it. The butte is a glacial moraine, with round, water shaped rocks and dirt comprising it. It's not bedrock. Somehow, through political manipulations (in my opinion), this area was incorporated into town property. Then, a corporation built a store there after altering part of the hillside that increased its potential for shifting. So, it boils down to money. There has been a slide a few hundred yards to the east of this, and in various places around the butte. It has just been a geological problem waiting to happen. Now, I imagine there will be plenty of lawsuits. I've been up by the house that is being shifted many times. In the 30's there was a land slide 4 times the size of the Oslo, Washington slide, which blocked a river and created a lake. Engineers said it would hold, a couple of years later it burst, wiping out a town and killing a few people. The lake is still there but smaller now. A few years back we had a nice big slide block a highway going west/south for weeks on end. These things happen here not and then, but this was an easily predictable and avoidable place to build. The new store had only been opened a few weeks! Just another case of "progress" in that money makes developing in stupid areas politically possible, like all the hillsides in California that cause houses to slide. Mother Nature has her whims, we had best avoid those we can.

I just found a new article here, came out today about this Issue

Associated Press, Slow Landslide

By Saturday morning, the shifting earth had caused bulges in a road and a parking lot at the foot of the hill that were as big as 10 feet. The groundswell pushed a small town water pump building 15 feet toward West Broadway, the town's main drag.

I hope since its moving so slowly that, everyone can sense the danger, and get out of the way. I hope it doesn't suddenly give way.

Possibly the result of fracking? earthjustice.org...

With fracking quakes happening all over this country I could certainly see fracking as the cause to sink holes and land slides.

a reply to: Witness2008

Could it be nothing more than natural geologic activity? The OP's article states that the formation is comprised mainly of glacial slag. This has about the same stability as 'Reclaimed Land'.

Dangers Reclaimed land is highly susceptible to soil liquefaction during earthquakes,[10] which can amplify the amount of damage that occurs to buildings and infrastructure. Subsidence is another issue, both from soil compaction on filled land, and also when wetlands are enclosed by levees and drained to create Polders. Drained marshes will eventually sink below the surrounding water level, increasing the danger from flooding.

It seems as of late any seismic hiccup, or pot hole in the road is being blamed on fracking. I don't doubt the possibility that fracking can cause seismic activity, slumping and any other number of results, but I doubt the incidence is as high as purported.

Here is another article on this story, With a couple pictures. This article was written by The AP, but I found it on the UK Daily Mail.

Another Slow Landside Article.

It would be interesting if we could find some more pictures of this, especially from locals.

a reply to: Lipton

Of course it could be. However I think that we should still keep an eye on the fracking and any and all geological changes happening around it.

I'm not sure what the area of affect (effect?) is of fracking and landslides/earthquakes is, as in how close to a fracking site do these types of incidents occur usually. And I also do not know if there is any fracking going on in or near Jackson, Wyoming. I hope that a local or locals of Jackson can update us on this, the landslide, and fracking information and also please post some pictures.

According to the website that you Posted Witness2008, the nearest Incident is in Pinedale, which is roughly 75 miles from Jackson.

I am of the opinion that some contractors in Jackson, dug into the side of a hill, containing glacier remains, and destabilized it so much that gravity is taking over. I believe these are called "moraines" as jaxnmarco stated. There is a really great example of moraines at Wallowa lake in Joseph, Oregon.
I hope that everyone gets out of the way, no lives are lost, and not much more property be destroyed.



I have some pictures in my library of google maps distance between Jackson and Pinedale, and of the earthjustice.org website, but I either do not know how to post pictures in a post, or my computer is fighting me and deliberately keeping me from doing what I want. I'm going with operator error, If someone could help me please do, I'm helpless.

a reply to: RedBeardRay

I was hoping that one or two members would take a look at the Earth Justice maps. I am not as familiar with the State as others may be. I only know how breathtakingly beautiful it is, and how fracking has caused a great deal of damage in the NW part of the state.

There are so many new wells being dug in many states that it is hard to keep up with all of their locations.