MULINO, Ore. – The Oregon Department of Transportation is installing 40 drains, 40 feet below the surface of Highway 213, to try and stop a slow-moving landslide that’s causing large cracks in the highway.
ODOT crews said heavy rains activated an ancient landslide in March 2017. It appears the active landslide is part of a larger group of ancient landslides along the southern flank of Spangler Hill.
But over the past week or so, wet weather has caused the slow-moving landslide to rip apart a large section of OR 213, creating a large crack in the road.
ODOT says OR 213 remains safe. The southbound lanes are closed, and traffic is getting by, alternating north and south.
Crews are monitoring conditions, and a contractor will pave the areas of the crack. Crews hope to re-open all of OR 213 by the beginning of February. However, they say they will most likely have to close sections of it again, in the future, to make more repairs, and the landslide continues to slowly move.
ODOT will continue to install those 40 drains until about the spring. Work has started, and so far crews have installed three drains, which are already gushing 20 gallons of water a minute from the hill.
As for a danger to homes, crews are seeing cracks in the pavement of a nearby property. But for now, they say, it's a watch-and-wait situation.
If you have questions, you can call Clackamas County, and if you want, the county says you can hire your own personal geo-technical engineer to assess your property. The county will warn you if the slide becomes more dangerous.
“If things change, and something that was perhaps viewed as safe yesterday is now considered a hazard, certainly we would, and we also have a responsibility to make a determination as to whether or not a building can be occupied in those cases,” said Clackamas County Building Codes Administrator Scott Caufield. “My staff is trained to do those things. Right now, we have no reason to think that, and we're hopeful that things don’t change for the worse.”