The Yakima Herald posted this video, shot by Steven Mack, of a growing fissue on Rattlesnake Ridge near Yakima, Wa.
I-82, seen in the footage, is only threatened in “less likely scenarios.” The county has pre-emptively declared an official disaster.
The city of Union Gap also declared a disaster, allowing officials to request the help they’ll need when the hillside comes down.
The big question remains “When will the slide happen?” State geologists now say they don’t expect a landslide event until sometime between late January and early March.
“The honest answer is no one knows for certain. There are a number of possibilities. The most likely scenario is that the landslide will continue to slowly move to the south, where the landslide mass will fall into the quarry pit and accumulate. Monitoring data suggests most of the mass will remain in the pit and on the hillside,” the Washington state Department of Natural Resources said on its website.
I’ve roughly marked the hill that’s coming down on this google maps image. Most of it will just fill the quarry you see to the bottom right, apparently.
At least 20 people were killed over the weekend after landslides and flooding in California.