The Columbia Press
February 12, 2021
Repairs essential after even small slides, ODOT says
Slide south of
Warrenton one
of many in state
A two-week project began
this week to repair a slide
that undermined the road
and is impacting Highway
101 between Camp Rilea and
Sunset Beach.
Work is scheduled between
7:30 a.m. at 6 p.m. weekdays
through Feb. 23.
A contractor working for
the Oregon Department of
Transportation is applying
soil nails to the slide area,
which requires closure of the
southbound lane. Flaggers
are directing traffic through
the area.
While the slide south of
Warrenton is less visible than
many, landslides are a way
of life in Oregon, the Depart-
ment of Transportation says.
Late last month, a landslide
closed Highway 30 east of
Astoria.
Unfortunately, the chances
of them occurring have risen
after last year’s devastating
wildfires.
“Primarily what I want to
know is how much time we
have left for our highways in
certain areas,” said Curran
Mohney, an ODOT senior en-
gineering geologist. “What’s
the life span of our high-
ways on the coast and in our
stressed areas? How fast are
landslides accelerating, es-
pecially with climate change
drivers? How long until we
lose that battle?”
Mohney’s Statewide Proj-
ect Delivery group analyzes
thousands of pieces of data
regularly to try to get a han-
dle on the complex situation.
Because, Mohney said,
Mother Nature will ultimate-
ly win.
One project Mohney di-
rects is in year four of its
seven-year life and involves
Oregon Department of Transportation
The Hookskanaden Slide near Brookings moved across High-
way 101 in March 2019, disrupting traffic for several months.
monitoring five landslide
sites along the coast.
In January 2017, Mohney,
along with students and pro-
fessors from Portland State
and Oregon State universi-
ties, installed sensors and
monitors so data collection
could begin.
“It’s coming along really, re-
ally well – almost better than
I thought it would,” Mohney
said. “We have some really
smart kids, young and enthu-
siastic, and several very expe-
rienced professors; I couldn’t
have asked for better.”
Two of the slides Mohney
and his team are monitoring
have had serious movement
in the past several years: Ar-
izona and Hooskanaden, be-
tween Brookings and South
Beach in Southern Oregon.
In both, the team lost instru-
ments.
“The deep monitors are
generally viewed as sacrifi-
cial anyway; it just happened
sooner than we thought be-
cause the landslides moved
so fast,” he said. “We still
have surface change detec-
tion using UAV (unmanned
aerial vehicles, or drones)
and ground-based Lidar.”
This newer technology al-
lows the team to pick up
where the in-ground instru-
ments leave off when they are
sheared.
Mohney said the project is
increasing knowledge that
will benefit the state in many
ways.
“It’s telling us things about
how and why landslides hap-
pen in certain places,” he
said. “Just imagining what
our issues are going to be
with climate change and Cas-
cadia (the Cascadia Subduc-
tion Zone Earthquake) – it
seems insurmountable. So if
we can figure out anything
about where, why, how, then
we can be prepared. Maybe
we can go out ahead of time
and make smart decisions.”
Mohney and the team used
buried material, including
a tree trunk, to radiocarbon
date the Hooskanaden Slide
and found that it occurred
about 270 years ago – around
30 years younger than the
last Cascadia Subduction
Zone earthquake.
He said that means if the
slide wasn’t directly initiated
by the Cascadia event, it was
certainly affected by it.
3
State gets funding to become
part of national suicide hotline
A national suicide preven-
tion hotline is in the works.
As the nation is accus-
tomed to dialing 911 for
public safety emergencies,
there will be a three-digit
number for suicide emer-
gencies: 988.
“We look forward to hav-
ing another tool to help us
save lives,” said Patrick Al-
len, director of the Oregon
Health Authority.
Oregon
received
a
$135,000 grant to join the
national effort from Vibrant
Emotional Health, the non-
profit group that admin-
isters the national suicide
prevention hotline.
“We’re grateful to Vibrant
for awarding these funds
to help us move forward
with our strategic planning
and infrastructure to make
988 accessible to all Orego-
nians,” Allen said.
The 988 emergency num-
ber goes live nationwide on
July 16, 2022.
The grant will help Ore-
gon with resources, train-
ing, technical assistance,
and infrastructure needs
to allow access to the new
number.
The new 988 number
will become the national
three-digit dialing code for
the National Suicide Pre-
vention Lifeline, replacing
the current phone number
of 1-800-273-TALK. Any-
one needing support should
continue to call 1-800-273-
TALK until the new number
is active in July 2022.
“The recognition that
mental health and addic-
tion crises are as important
and pervasive as physical
health crises is a long time
coming,” said Steve Allen,
OHA behavioral health di-
rector.
“The new 988 number is
easy to learn and quick to
use, allowing for a simple
way to access crisis services
for anyone struggling with a
mental health or addiction
emergency.”