A major slide on the border of Duquesne Heights and the West End destroyed a home on Sunday. The slide started Friday afternoon with mud spilling onto Greenleaf Street. The homeowner and his wife were ordered to evacuate as a precaution.
Crews tried to clear away the debris Saturday and the residents were allowed back in to save essential belongings, but by Sunday morning, officials said it was clear the slide wasn't stopping.
The house slid and fell apart as mud and trees came down the hill and poured over a retaining wall onto Route 51.
"The first priority is to stop the slide and to stop additional damage," said City of Pittsburgh Director of Mobility and Infrastructure Karina Ricks. "Landslides are unpredictable. But from what we've seen we believe the largest mass has come down already so we may see some slow progression still."
© KDKA Photojournalist Bryce Lutz
A landslide along Babcock Boulevard in the North Hills sent concrete slabs tumbling down a hill last Friday.
Trees caused some small damage to a building, and a van and trailer were crushed.
© KDKA Photojournalist Paul Spradley
Huge trees came down on a hillside behind several homes on Donaldson Drive in Baldwin Township last Thursday.
"I showed up this morning at about 7 o'clock, and there were a couple rocks lying there," Denny Miskevics, of Baldwin Township, said. "Next thing you know, about 7:30, 8 o'clock, more started coming down."
No one was evacuated and officials said the hillside looked stable, but they were planning to keep an eye on it.
Four homes had to be evacuated in Garfield last Wednesday as a hillside started to slid and sink. Residents who were forced to leave their homes said they could hear popping sounds and trees falling.
In Spring Hill, six homes had to be evacuated last Tuesday. One resident was forced to leave her home of 63 years.
"We heard some dirt fall, but it fell over two doors up the street. In the dark, you can't see so in the morning looked and said it's not my yard and about an hour later, kaboom that all came down at once," she said.
A landslide also shut down Spring Hill's Gershon Street last weekend.
© Julie Grant/KDKA
A home on Ninth Street in Oakmont overlooked a spot on Dark Hollow Road where mud, trees and debris covered the road last Monday, but it was unclear if the house was in any danger.
Several other landslides throughout the area forced roads to shut down for hours while crews cleaned mud and debris away.
© KDKA Photojournalist Tim Lawson
This past weekend, landslides shut down roads in the South Side Slopes and the Squirrel Hill/Swisshelm Park area, and a tree fell and brought down wires and a transformer onto Scotia Hollow Road in West Elizabeth.
Last Saturday, a section of McArdle Roadway was covered in mud, and multiple landslides related to that initial slide later forced the closure of William Street in Mount Washington. A rockslide also shut down Noblestown Road in the West End last weekend.
Comment: While the recent mudslide in California has been getting a lot of media attention (no doubt due to the celebrities affected by it), landslides and mudslides around the world seem to be on the rise with seeming unrelenting increases in rain.
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