Jackson Hole Landslide Devours Wyoming Town [Video]


The Jackson Hole landslide has been slowing devouring a Wyoming town one business and home at a time.

In a related report by The Inquisitr, a landslide in Snohomish county ended with 108 missing people.

Reports says the Jackson Hole landslide is like watching a disaster movie in slow motion. So far the moving mass of ground only measures 100 feet, but it’s continued to move for almost two and just recently started to accelerate in its path of destruction. Photos show the concrete buckling underneath the pressure in a parking lot near a local Walgreens store. Although work crews have attempted to shore up the Jackson Hole landslide, the rocks and dirt keeping on tumbling down. The disaster has reached a status where town spokeswoman Charlotte Reynolds isn’t sure what they should even do about the problem:

“When is it going to go? How long is it going to last? These are the questions we just can’t answer and they’re what everyone wants to know.”

No one is certain what triggered the Jackson Hole landslide. Some claim the construction of the new Walgreens may have weakened the foundation of the hillside. Others point out that the wet weather during the winter dropped a lot of water into the soil, which may have lubricated the rocks underneath just enough to get motion started. But landslides also are not very uncommon. For example, if you count all 50 states, they kill an average of 25 to 50 people per year with a damages cost between $1 billion to $3 billion. David Montgomery, a geology professor at the University of Washington in Seattle, says the Jackson Hole landslide may serve as a warning for building in mountainous areas:

“When you add it up, it’s actually a major geological hazard. As more people move into more mountainous environments, the opportunities for interactions between human infrastructure and people, and landslides, increase.”

In response to the impending disaster, city officials evacuated 42 homes and apartment units on April 9 in order to ensure their safety. The only good news is that the Jackson Hole landslide is unlikely to come down in a sudden rush, which means they should not suffer the same fate as the landslide in Washington state where 39 people died. The ground is said to be moving at a rate of one inch per day, so it’s believed that larger chunks of earth may come down one piece at a time.

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