Evergreen bluff section slides
Chunks of a hillside break off and add to an earlier landslide on Wednesday afternoon north of Kalispell.
By MELISSA WEAVER
The Daily Inter Lake
A section of bluff overlooking an Evergreen neighborhood collapsed Wednesday morning, taking down trees and a fence as it crumbled into a 20-foot-high heap below.
The landslide took out about 20 feet of a backyard in the Hillcrest subdivision.
“I thought someone was pulling up to say hi,” Scott Corrigeux said of the deep rumbling sound he heard while he was inside his home at 270 Riverside Drive around 11 a.m.
“I walked outside, looked up, and all I saw was the hillside collapsing,” he said. “I was kind of in awe. I saw the trees coming up in the air along with my fence.”
He said he ran to make sure his dog and trucks were out of the way, then grabbed the phone and called 911.
The slide that started on the bluff above Corrigeux’s property took out several trees and an old wooden fence.
No structures were damaged.
Corrigeux said he believed the Hillcrest house above the slide belongs to Dewey Swank.
Evergreen Fire Rescue Chief Craig Williams called the slide “pretty expansive.”
“It pushed the ground up about 20 feet high,” he said, “it’s still sliding... it’s up to Mother Nature at this point to decide whether or not to stop it.”
Although the soil in the area is a sandy silt and some erosion is common, Williams said a landslide of this magnitude is unusual.
Evergreen Fire Rescue, the Flathead County Office of Emergency Services, Flathead Electric, Northwest Energy, Flathead County Roads and Bridges and area geologists arrived at the scene to assess the damage.
Reporter Melissa Weaver may be reached at 758-4441 or by e-mail at mweaver@dailyinterlake.com