Nile Valley in a state of upheaval

NACHES, Wash. -- A day after being hit by a massive landslide, residents recalled a slow-motion mass of grinding rock and dirt.

"Like a glacier -- rumbling and inching forward. A popping, grumbling sound," Ron Simmons said of the slide that lifted his house several feet and cracked his daughter's home next door.

On Monday, Simmons and his daughter, Rebecca, were cleaning out their homes and packing their belongings into the back of a pickup.

"This area has always been a little unstable but nothing like this," said Simmons, who grew up here -- about 10 miles west of Naches and just west of the Woodshed Restaurant -- and recalls another slide in 1956.

A similar refrain was echoed a quarter-mile or so to the west, on the other side of the landslide.

It was just a matter of time before something happened along that mountainside, said resident Frank Koch.

"We've been listening to it for about two weeks -- cracks and little rocks sliding," he said. "It didn't just happen overnight."

Sunday's landslide, more than a quarter-mile wide and up to 40 feet thick, buried a swath of State Route 410 and covered the Naches River, sending a new channel of water into about 25 homes. It pushed up the original riverbed about 40 feet in places, leaving rainbow trout dying on the high rocks.

The slide destroyed two homes and damaged at least three others, including two owned by two generations of the Simmons family.

Damage to roads, homes and property could range up to $20 million, said Jim Hall, director of Yakima Valley Office of Emergency Management.

The area was deemed stable on Monday, but officials warned that rain, the river's new route, and stress fractures in the adjacent sections of the hill could cause additional landslides in the future.

It may take several weeks -- even months -- to restore this section of SR-410. Officials also said the slide may have effectively closed travel over Chinook Pass for the season.

Work on a detour around the slide area is scheduled to begin today. The detour, which is intended only for local residents and emergency personnel, is expected to be completed by Friday.

It will take traffic around the slide on Nile Road, which roughly parallels SR-410 through the Nile Valley. As of Monday, however, parts of that road were still underwater.

The county plans a berm to protect Nile Road and stop the water from inundating the several homes along its south end.

While the state focuses on fixing the roadway, the county's "first and primary concern is to create a new channel," said Yakima County Commissioner Mike Leita, who toured the area for about four hours Monday morning.

"Half the river is going over the Nile Road," he said. "There is water running over and across the Nile Road, in some places three feet deep."

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On the section of Nile Road west of the slide, three men stood watching the Naches River's new path into a large red barn and across their family's pasture.

Nearby, the roof of a log cabin was nearly cracked in two.

Clad in rubber boots and stocking cap, Koch checked on livestock near the base of the slide.

"I've just been walking around, keeping an eye on everything," he said.

A few moments later he was joined by Lesley Schulte and Brain DuHaime.

Without enough gas to travel a Forest Service road over Bethel Ridge to U.S. Highway 12 and then to Yakima, the couple said the only place they could get supplies was nearby Whistlin' Jack Lodge.

They bought bottled water and chips the night before, when cash-only transactions were being conducted in the dark without power.

Power was restored to the area 1:45 p.m. Monday. About 900 homes were without power after the slide.

"We were lucky to have a little propane heater that we were able to snuggle around," said DuHaime.

He said the slide came as a shock.

"We didn't know what happened," he said. "We heard the rumble."

In other related developments:

* Naches Valley School District officials said the roadblock had affected 47 students and three staff members, although some parents are arranging to have their children stay with friends or relatives closer to Naches, said Superintendent Duane Lyons.

But some teachers on the other side of the landslide did make it to school Monday, he added.

"One paraprofessional drove six hours around through Seattle to get to work," Lyons said, adding that other teachers came down on four-wheelers via a Forest Service road over Bethel Ridge.

"What you're seeing is some expression of the rugged individualism of some of the folks who do live up there," Lyons said. "They have to be self-reliant."

* The loss of power and road closure hurt some businesses above the landslide.

Prior to the slide, it had been a full house at the Squaw Rock Resort. But by Monday afternoon, the place was empty, except for employee Kathy Smith.

"We're hanging in as best we can," said Smith, adding that the resort's store stayed busy during the outage. "We had to refund some money. It's going to hurt us a little bit."

* Access by emergency services to the affected area remains intact. An ambulance was stationed above the slide overnight. Also, the Nile-Cliffdell fire station is west of the landslide and available to serve residents cut off by the road closures, and a helicopter could be summoned for emergency medical evacuations.

For now, the Simmonses are staying at another house they own down the road. They say they're touched by the hospitality of friends and relatives.

In small communities like this one, generosity in times of need is natural, said Sherry Gillespie, a volunteer firefighter with the Cliffdell-Nile Fire Department.

"We're all one family here, this community," she said, tears welling in her eyes. "You live so long here, when disaster hits it affects us all. All of us will do whatever we can to help."

* Melissa Sánchez can be reached at 509-577-7675 or msanchez@yakimaherald.com.

* Phil Ferolito can be reached at 509-577-7749 or pferolito@yakimaherald.com.

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