Landslide

[Electra_Glide]

What happens when you try and build a Wal-Mart supercenter into the side of a small mountain:

http://www.wpxi.com/news/9890742/detail.html

Make sure to check of the "Photos from the scene" link. That's a lot of dirt...I wonder if they'd hire me to bring down my little S175 and 1-ton to clean it up...:wink2

This is the 2nd time a lansdlide has occurred on this site and closed the highway in the last 5 months...:eek:

Joe

[digger242j]

A couple of pictures I pirated from KDKA TV's site. Link to their coverage, with video available, here: http://kdka.com/topstories/local_story_263062613.html

To give an idea of the original topo, the third pic is from Google Earth. I tried to match it to the second pic, from the news chopper. It looks as if much of the fill they placed at the far end of the site, (from the point of view of the pictures), has slid onto the highway. Note the first pic--you can see the cracks on the top of the fill as it moves toward the highway. The slide appears to be roughly where the "65" is on the Goolge Earth pic.

My recollection, from passing that way numerous times, is that the material overlooking the highway was rock. I'm assuming they borrowed from higher on the site and filled near the edge adjacent to the highway to create more flat area. It's hard to imagine what might have caused this. :confused:

[Dwan Hall]

We all know what caused it. People working on jobs that are over there head. Shows what can happen when someone gets greedy.
Just glad no one got hurt. Now if they could just make them pay for there mistake.

[digger242j]

We all know what caused it. People working on jobs that are over there head.

What I meant was, what's the underlying physical cause? I'm not sure how much material was involved--on the news one of the talking heads said 500 million yards. Obviously that's typical media "screw up the facts" reporting. Half a million I could see.

Thing is, you don't get to play in that league unless you have some equipment, and some experience. And that size job doesn't come without an engineer desgning it, and somebody inspecting the work. I can't imagine they just decided to push it over the edge with a dozer and got surprised when it slid away--something has to have been mis-engineered, just plain missed, or cheated on.

[Dozerboy]

something has to have been mis-engineered, just plain missed, or cheated on.

X2 :yup

[norrodbh]

Joe, I'll join you with my little 1-ton and S-175 :)

All that blasting they did back in April. That's nothing but shale over there, and now it's like sand ! It's all going to come down.

Now they are saying weeks to clear and my wife is livid. She has to travel that route quite often.

I saw CSX had their own equipment out to clear their tracks. The slide blocked their mainline to Chicago.

I have a few customers in that area looking for fill. Now's their chance !

[xkvator]

Somebody's gonna be filing bankruptcy...:yup

looking at the pic on the Triblive.com...there's a piece of equip at the top edge, right next to the slide...seems like a dangerous place to be.

I sometimes think about the amount of site prep for these stores...right now they're working 24/7 in North Huntington for a new Walmart...gonna take 6 months.
residents are complaining about the backup alarm noise all night.

[digger242j]

I just watched the latest coverage on TV. It looks like it hasn't stopped moving yet. You gotta wonder whether any of the fill they placed was done right. :confused:

You guys from outside western PA probably don't get a real good idea of how big a mess this is.... :eek2

[Electra_Glide]

Joe, I'll join you with my little 1-ton and S-175 :)

Sweet!!! With two of us it will get done twice as fast...:thumbsup

[digger242j]

Uh, I don't know. I think you guys should be thinking more in terms of a 5-ton...

:wink2

[Electra_Glide]

Well, the road is open again...

http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/9965649/detail.html

Interestig to see what happens next. All the permits were pulled until the cleanup was complete. It will be interesting to see if they get them back (I assume they will).


Joe

[digger242j]

Some pictures of the landslide. Don Lang (charter member but infrequent poster here), and I flew over the site in his airplane on Tuesday evening, (9/26). There was quite a bit of progress cleaning up the highway by then, but the slide area is still apparent. I've outlined it in yellow in the first shot. The black lines indicate roughly where the road was/is supposed to go to get up to the top. You can see the green areas north and south of the slide. That's the slope on the high side of the access road. I believe that was seeded, and used to be continuous from one end to the other--that gives a good idea of the length of the slide.

(I apologize for the quality of the pictures--it was just about dusk, and the light could've been better. I tried some zoomed shots but they all came out blurry.)

[digger242j]

One more from the river side, a little closer in. And just because I like it, a shot of downtown Pittsburgh

[Electra_Glide]

Cool pictures digger!!!

I was in the neighborhood, and since the road is open now, I did a quick drive-by and snaped these pictures as I was headin' down the road. This gives you a pretty good idea of how far underground the road was.

They had some big iron up there. Saw a couple of D10s and a 385.

[JimBruce42]

Good to see that the company in charge made good on their promise to hussle and get that road open again. I was watching some of the videos in some of your links and it looks like there had to be 20+ ADT's there as well as the 385 and a 375 and who knows how many 45-ton Cat's and Deere's.

I missed who the contractor was on this job though, did anyone else catch that?

[Electra_Glide]

I missed who the contractor was on this job though, did anyone else catch that?

The site contractor was (is) "Penn Development". I forget who the developer was. I think it was something like "ASC Development".

It ends up that a friend of mine who works for the local Operating Engineers recently hired-on with them. He was telling me that they basically gave all the operators a "blank check" that they could work as many hours as they could stand until the cleanup was complete. They were going 24x7 for about a week-and-a-half. He didn't sign upsince they were keeping him pretty busy on another job, but he said there were some guys who would do their regular shift, then head down there to work a double.

However, now that the cleanup is pretty much complete, it looks like most of the work has stopped.

Joe

[Electra_Glide]

Well, a year later, and it now appears that nothing will be built on this site.

http://www.timesonline.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18858368&BRD=2305&PAG=461&dept_id=478569&rfi=6

Moved a lot of dirt for nothing...

Joe

[thejdman04]

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