PORTLAND, Ore. — Portland crews hope to have a section of West Burnside that is closed due to a landslide back open by Monday.
The slide happened last Friday, Jan. 24. It was the largest landslide on a city street in about two years.
On Thursday, crews finished cleaning up the roughly seven dump truck loads of mud, trees and debris that slid down onto the road.
The slide happened on the grounds of the Mount Calvary Cemetery, near Skyline Boulevard, adjacent to a slide that happened back in 2017. No gravesites were affected in either slide. Since that time, a section of slope has held.
Now, city engineers are dealing with this new slide just east of the old one. In order to do that, the city has shut down all eastbound traffic. It will also be shutting down westbound traffic daily from 7 a.m. until 3 p.m. through at least this Sunday.
"We're hoping to have the eastbound lane reopen for the Monday morning commute, but this is a dynamic situation with the weather changing and the slide changing, we'll have to keep everybody up to date on that," said Portland Bureau of Transportation spokesman Dylan Rivera.
Crews will be putting in jersey barriers to at least temporarily stabilize the slope to allow engineers time to come up with a permanent plan.