CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Work to remove debris off Keystone Drive in Charleston is nearing completion 18 months after a massive hillside collapsed at Yeager Airport’s overrun area.
“I’m happy we’ve got this far,” Terry Sayre, Yeager director, said of the progress made since the March 2015 slope failure. “I mean, I just have to look back at where we came from. We started at the top. We had like a 150 foot straight up and down cliff out there. I’m just glad we did all this work and no body got hurt.”
Sayre told members of Yeager’s Construction Committee Monday morning approximately 630,000 cubic yards of debris has been removed with about another 80,000 to go.
The goal is to have the debris removal complete by late October and the road reopened shortly after that, Sayre said.
“I hope that Highways comes in and repaves the road for the people in the neighborhood,” he said.
The collapse destroyed a church, damaged several homes and displaced a number of residents along Keystone Drive. The road was shutdown following the incident.
Yeager officials have put rebuilding plans on hold as they continue to try and identify funding sources. Some funds could come out of pending lawsuits in connection with an ongoing legal battle of who is going to pay for slope costs.
Board members said they want to extend the airport’s runway. Sayre said an option they’re considering is extending the runway northward across a section of Coonskin Park.
“I’d like to see it go that way. It’d give us a lot longer runway for landings and take offs and it’s better for everyone,” Sayre said.
A new master plan is in the works. Sayre said they plan on conducting a study of their options and then hear recommendations for the project by June 2017.
“We’re going to choose someone to do that here by the end of this year,” he said.