Beacon Hill, above and below

After a long 24 hours of flooding, landslides and evacuations, Hoquiam officials are assessing the damage and looking toward restoring access to Beacon Hill, above and below, in the coming days.

A state Department of Natural Resources geologist took a closer look at the top and bottom of the hill on Tuesday, and the city and several contractors were working to restore access to Beacon Hill Drive and fortify an alternate access route for the hill’s residents in the meantime. As they do, they are keeping one eye on the hillside for the residents along Queets Avenue below, who saw some of the hill come down on them on Monday.

An alternate access route to the hill may be more important than the city originally thought, Hoquiam City Administrator Brian Shay said on Tuesday afternoon. He said that removing the debris and making the road safely passable could take up to two weeks and cost the city upwards of $300,000. The original time estimate to reopen the only paved access to Beacon Hill was three to four days.

Emergency declarations are next, as are likely geological and engineering assessments for the hill as a whole. Meantime, all residents can do now is wait for the danger, and the water, to recede.

Below

Of the three houses that were hit by the slide along Queets Avenue at the base of Beacon Hill, two of them were unoccupied.

But, though they escaped with their lives as the house was pushed off its foundation, the residents of one house “took the ride,” said Hoquiam Police Chief Jeff Myers.

Once it settled, “they couldn’t get out the front door, so they climbed out a window.”

After the initial slide, a group of about four Hoquiam Police officers and six firefighters visited about 100 homes along Queets Avenue, Cherry Street and the adjoining side streets, urging residents to leave the area in case more of the hill came down.

Mud, water and debris could be seen periodically coming down the hill most of the afternoon, and hip-deep flood waters inundated the surrounding blocks.

On the other side of Beacon Hill, slides also knocked an unoccupied home off its foundation on 16th Street and blocked Broadway Avenue near the S-curves. City crews cleared Broadway on Monday night, restoring access from Riverside Drive out toward Woodlawn.

By Tuesday, much of the water had receded, but the danger of slides still remains. Queets Avenue near the slide was still blocked off Tuesday, as the hillside’s stability is still being assessed while the Harbor slowly dries out.

Above

Once Beacon Hill Drive was blocked by a mudslide sometime early Monday morning, about 200 residents atop the hill were left with logging roads as the only way down off the hill.

By the late afternoon, a water department worker was guiding residents over some of those logging roads, heading north from the city water tower on Beacon Hill and over to Herbig Avenue in Aberdeen to get down.

In the hours between, residents were helped by city crews, among them two Hoquiam Water Department workers — Ryan Morris and Judd Bergeson — who hiked up the power line right-of-way after the road was taken out to bring help to residents in need, according to Beacon Hill resident Jim Eddy.

“Just walking up the regular road on a normal day is a chore, but through the woods? Oh my goodness,” he said. “They came up twice, one time carrying equipment. They helped residents in the condemned houses get out of their homes.”

Two homes near the edge of the hill have been severely undermined and have already been condemned by Hoquiam Building Official Lon Howell, who himself lives atop Beacon Hill and was still up there on Tuesday, according to Shay.

As the state geologist surveyed the top of the hill on Tuesday morning, ground cracks seen on Monday near an apartment complex on the hill appeared to have gotten bigger, Myers said, though Shay added that they did not appear to be significant enough to take any action on the property.

Residents did have power atop the hill, and emergency access existed via the logging roads, Myers said, so evacuating the hill was not mandatory, though, Eddy said some residents were advised to leave due to the conditions near their particular homes.

Eddy lives on the far eastern end of Beacon Hill Road, away from the slide area and at the opposite end of where the blocked road travels down the hill back into the city. He was safe in his home on Tuesday, though he drove around the hill to check on his neighbors on Monday as many were deciding what to do.

Eddy talked to one apartment resident who was in her car along the road and had been advised to evacuate. “She got in her car and drove out of the driveway of the apartments and stopped, and wondered, ‘What do I do now?’ “

Rognlin’s Inc. continues to work to repair the damage to Beacon Hill Drive, with the hope there are no more major slides.

“If it doesn’t rain, we should be OK,” Myers said. The Harbors are supposed to stay dry until about Friday, according to current forecasts.

In the meantime, the city is looking at fortifying the logging roads with the help of Quigg Bros. Inc. so they are a little more passable until Beacon Hill Drive is back open. Eddy said escorted trips along the backroads recommenced at about 7:30 a.m. after the city stopped escorting cars through the woods about 7 p.m. on Monday.

While they wait for answers, Eddy said the residents are taking care of each other. And, he said the city and crews from Rognlin’s and Quigg Bros. appear to be making good progress.

“I can’t reinforce enough how impressed I am with those two young men (who hiked up the hill) and the city crews in general,” Eddy said. “They’re not home with their families in these times, they’re taking care of us.”

What’s next?

It’s likely the city will need to do a complete geological and engineering analysis atop Beacon Hill and below it in the wake of Monday’s activity, Myers said.

The Grays Harbor County commissioners declared a state of emergency today for the entire county. Hoquiam Mayor Jack Durney is one of several local officials who have been in contact with the governor’s office and the governor himself, in addition to representatives from U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell’s office and staff for Congressman Derek Kilmer, he said Tuesday.

The county’s declaration is the first step in opening the area up to federal and state emergency funds. The Hoquiam City Council will also declare a state of emergency in the city, likely at its next meeting on Monday, Jan. 12.

“If I found out, however, that we needed to have a special meeting before then,” Durney said Tuesday, “we would.”

Shay said the city looked into purchasing property from the DNR about a year ago to create another access road onto Beacon Hill. At the time, buying the land alone would have cost the city millions. That plan never came to fruition, but, now, alternatives may need to be looked at, Shay said.

“It was a sad thing to go through,” Durney said from his insurance office the day after the deluge, as he and the city look ahead to the aftermath and cleanup of the slides and flood waters. “With flooding you’re just so helpless. … But all those things can be replaced.”

As Myers drove through the city Tuesday morning, he was already seeing Harborites out on the roads with bags and gloves beginning to pick up trash.

“What a great place we live in,” he said.

Durney talked of chatter he saw on Facebook about Hoquiam High School kids being organized to help out around town and clean up.

“We all pull together,” the mayor said.