Temporary road through landslide zone nearly complete

NACHES, Wash. -- Work on a temporary route through the Nile Valley for residents cut off by Sunday’s landslide should be done by the end of today, officials said.

Construction crews are raising sections of Nile Road as much as 4 feet above the re-routed Naches River, which flooded into a new channel Sunday after the massive landslide blocked its flow, said Don Whitehouse, regional administrator for the state Department of Transportation.

The county road is being used to as a temporary alternative to State Route 410, a quarter-mile of which was destroyed Sunday morning by the slide, about 10 miles west of Naches and just west of the Woodshed Restaurant.

Only residents and emergency personnel will have access to the detour around the slide.

Whitehouse cautioned that work on Nile Road — which buckled in some sections — is only a temporary fix. The Naches River is expected to rise within the next four to six weeks.

“We’re trying to reinforce the existing road to buy us some time,” he said. “But the work I’m doing right now will not withstand the high flows of November.”

Sunday’s landslide buried a stretch of SR 410, pushed asphalt and rocks into the Naches River and caused flooding throughout the Nile Valley. At least two homes were destroyed, and dozens more damaged by the slide and the subsequent flooding.

The landslide has mostly stabilized, although it continues to move slightly, said Dave Norman, a geologist with the state’s Department of Natural Resources. Geologists and engineers, who continue investigating the slide, say the disturbed landmass is about 80 acres in size.

— Melissa Sánchez