This amazing footage of a landslide on US 26-89 southwest of Jackson shows that Mother Nature still holds sway over the flow of traffic in Wyoming.
“Because of the volume of mud, rock and water moving across US 26-89 about 24 miles southwest of Jackson, and the speed at which the material is moving, there is no practical way to stop the slide and begin work to reopen the highway until the slide stabilizes naturally,” the Wyoming Department of Transportation said in a prepared statement on Thursday.
“The slide is an earth or debris flow, which is soil and rock saturated with water. Containing this type of slide at the rate it is moving would not be safe or practical because it would flow around a structure or berm built for this purpose,” WYDOT Chief Engineering Geologist Jim Coffin said. “Capturing the water feeding into the slide would be also be very difficult because the water flows below and above ground and from different sources on the hillside.”
— Contact Dustin Bleizeffer at 307-577-6069 or dustin@wyofile.com.
Dustin Bleizeffer is a Report for America Corps member covering energy and climate at WyoFile. He has worked as a coal miner, an oilfield mechanic, and for 25 years as a statewide reporter and editor primarily...
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