CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A spokesman for Yeager Airport says the situation with the massive hillside slide into a valley below the airport runway has transitioned from an emergency to a recovery operation.
“Engineers tell us the slip is largely stabilized,” said airport spokesman Mike Plante on MetroNews Talkline. “They do expect some more movement, but not the significant kind that we saw in the past. The movement we do see won’t impact any of the existing structures that weren’t already impacted.”
The massive slide crushed two structures and caused creek flooding which impacted several more homes last week. Over the weekend there was no more significant movement of the fill material.
Plante said a drainage ditch cut through the spoil from the hillside which buried part of Elk Two Mile Creek has also held and is allowing backed up water to finally flow out of the area. The floodwater caused significant damage to a handful of homes and caused a lot more residents to be forced out for several days.
“We’re evaluating house by house which residences people can move back into,” said Plante. “There’s about 116 people who have been displaced, there’s thankfully a smaller number who have been permanently impacted by this slide.”
Airport officials are working to accommodate those who suffered loss in the flood and the slide. Meanwhile, engineers are studying and mapping the slide itself and making plans for how to restore the man made hill which supports the over run of the Yeager runway.
“The hillside will have to be stabilize and rebuilt in some shape or form,” Plante said. “What form that will take, we don’t know right now.”
Plante said rebuilding the slide will likely take considerable time and engineering. The first thing officials want to do is to allow the sediment on the hill to dry out now that it has reached what engineers called “equilibrium.” Plante said that level is where the slide is likely over and the ground has settled.