Landslide splits Jackson house in half
The problems with a sliding hillside in Jackson, Wyoming are getting much worse tonight.
Shown here is a picture of the house we’ve looked at all week since the hill started sliding. It’s Jeremy and Sara Budge’s home.
Angus Thuermer with the Jackson Hole News and Guide took this picture and you can see the home has cracked and broken apart.
At first the slide was moving an inch a day. Now it is moving up to a foot a day. Earlier today, the sewer line to Budge Drive ruptured. The city is working to cap it off to avoid health problems, but there’s no plan on how to make the hillside stable.
According to the Jackson Hole News and Guide tonight the parking lot of Walgreens and the beginning of Budge Drive had turned into waves of steeply buckled pavement by this afternoon, with some undulations reaching 8 – 10 – feet high.
It’s the living room of the Budge’s home that has broken off. The Jackson Hole News and Guide said at a press conference engineers were unable to say how long the slide may continue to move or whether it will reach West Broadway.
Now they’re worried that ground movement could rupture the water main beneath Broadway, which would cut water to a third of Jackson and flood the area with 2 million gallons within 30 minutes.
The town is providing a live video stream of the slope at its website townofjackson.com.
