Portland Had 20 Landslides So Far This Week. Here's Where They Were.

BY LIZZY ACKER and AARON MESH

The record rains soaking Portland are turning the city's hills into mudslides.

In the first three days of heavy rain—midnight Sunday, Dec. 6 through midnight Sunday, Dec. 9—Portland transportation engineers responded to 20 landslides in the city.

The Portland Bureau of Transportation noted in a press release last night that it has removed at least 900 cubic yards of debris from roads. That's enough dirt and rocks to fill 75 dump trucks.

At this hour, only one Stumptown street remains closed by a landslide: Southwest Montgomery Street from Southwest Vista Street to Southwest 14th Avenue. But it's still raining.

"We see a potential for more [landslides] in the coming days," says PBOT spokesman Dylan Rivera.

The biggest of the slides, a portion of the West Hills giving way near Northwest Saltzman Road, closed U.S. Highway 30 for much of two days. The closure was extended when engineers clearing rubble grazed a gas line.

That slide was widely reported—as was another in Woodland, Wash. that closed Interstate 5 in Washington state. But plenty more flew under the radar, even as city staff logged 4,400 hours clearing roads.

WW asked PBOT for the addresses of all 20 landslides within city limits. Then we mapped them.

Find one near your house—and marvel at the power of nature to inconvenience and possibly kill you!

Willamette Week