Home still empty as slide stalls
One home remains evacuated five weeks after a portion of it fell victim to a slow-moving landslide above Creekside Road in Penticton.
Most of the damage was done Aug. 9, when material from a steep hillside above inundated the garage and took out some of the support posts for a deck attached to the house at 718 Creekside Road.
The home above at 645 Heather Road was also evacuated, after the slide undermined part of a retaining wall below its backyard pool.
In consultation with private engineers, city officials decided to wait for more material to fall before deciding what to do. However, the slide hasn’t actually done much since and is now “substantially stabilized,” according to Ken Kunka, the city’s deputy director of development services.
“We are currently working with owners and their professionals to establish a remediation plan,” Kunka said in an email Thursday.
“The evacuation order still remains on 718 Creekside Road but the owner has been engaged in doing some structural and geotechnical assessments of the house and property under a temporary access permit.”
A worker was at the house Thursday boarding up the doors and windows of the rental property.
The cause of the slide remains under investigation.
Kunka said previously the slide is believed to have been hung up by the dryness of the soil, which creates friction, unlike the more fluid conditions present in a mudslide.