Cedar Hills slide is moving

Parts of the Cedar Hills landslide are moving almost nine times faster than the pace over the weekend after a deluge of water from rainstorms throughout the valley the past two days.

"We're seeing up to a foot or more a day, in terms of movement," said Francis Ashland, Utah Geological Survey geologist, after returning from the slide Wednesday afternoon.

Ashland also said fresh cracks have formed along the slide's perimeter. The cracks show where one mass of land has become detached from other land.

The slide is pressing up against a four-unit townhouse building and poses a threat to at least two neighboring homes. Six families were evacuated from the properties following the initial slide on April 28; four remain out of their homes.

Showers on Monday and Tuesday saturated the ground, creating mucky, soupy soil more prone to slide. The rate of movement will continue to increase as long as the storms continue, Ashland said.

Survey crews are visiting the area twice a day, morning and afternoon, to monitor a series of points in the slide mass marked with wooden stakes. One stake had moved each time they checked.

Several others, formally dormant, are now showing recordable progress of the slide's movement, said Gary Ratcliffe, land surveyor with the Utah County Surveyor's Office. One stake even slid so much it couldn't be recovered from the mud.

AMEC Earth & Environmental Inc. is in the area doing subsurface investigations to determine what stabilizing procedures can be taken. No walls can be constructed until the load amount for the wall is determined, nor can any soil be cleared until its type and characteristics are identified, Ashland said.

"You can take some temporary measures, but they may not work," he said.

Because the soil consists of clay, the ground will remain wet for some time after the rain stops, Ashland said. After the first slide in April, the sunny spell helped dry the soil, slowing movement. However, with another storm in the seven-day forecast, Ashland said he isn't optimistic about how quickly the soggy soil will dry up.

The four townhouses supporting the weight of the slide are still standing, though Ashland said on Wednesday he noticed some hairline cracks on the foundation of the northernmost house.

In the northwest part of Utah County, Wednesday's rain brought flooding on Eagle Mountain roads, though no homes were affected.