A car drives past a large hole off Douglas Road Thursday where three trees stood before Sunday’s storm brought rain and later erosion of the soil.(Melanie Duncan Thortis The Vicksburg Post)

[04/11/03]As sunny weather allows some flooded areas to dry, mudslides on roadsides in Vicksburg and Warren County are being inspected and cleaned up. An engineer who has specialized in soils and foundations said measures to prevent such slides in future storms would be costly and might not be effective.

“Actions that would prevent these landslides can be very expensive and don’t guarantee success,” said Milton Myers, an executive special assistant in the Geotechnical and Structures lab at the Engineer Research Development Center.

Some of these measures would be to improve the drainage at the tops and bottoms of slopes, installing underground drains or wells systems or building retaining walls.

Myers said the cost for those preventive actions would range from $10 a foot to $100,000 a foot. Because mudslides to this extent in the Vicksburg and Warren Count area are rare, costly repairs are not needed, he said.

“Our city, county and state do a pretty good job with the resources they have in draining and vegetation control,” he said.

Twin storms Sunday dumped 8.3 inches of rain and overwhelmed drainage systems. Loess soil common to the area has distinct properties and among them is transforming land to soupy goop when saturated.

That means many hillsides flowed on the roads and many sloping shoulders washed away.

Warren County Road Manager Rhea Fuller and his crews have been working steadily this week to clear dirt and debris from roadways.

For mudslides that have washed roadsides out, Fuller said crews would first clean the area and replace washed-out materials with dirt. The third step is to place gray rock, called riprap, on top on the new dirt for support.

Loess allows water to vertically penetrate easier and quicker than it can move out of soil horizontally.

“Eight inches of rain within 24 hours is a tremendous amount of rain,” he said. “Practically any soil will become unstable when it gets saturated to that extent.”

City engineer Garnet Van Norman said mudslides were all over town, but the North Washington Street mudslide could be the city’s worst.

The county’s worst mudslide, Fuller said, was on Douglas Road near Culkin Road. The mud created a 50 or 60-foot drop. Crews had to add dirt materials to the other side of the road so vehicles could pass. Fuller said the drop off is such a huge problem, he would ask the Warren County Board of Supervisors to consider contracting out for repair work.

Most roads in the county, however, have been cleaned and are passable, Fuller said. Warriors Trail is still closed due to water from the Big Black River, but Bovina Cutoff has been graded and is open.

Redwood Road is expected to be open to two lanes today after crews worked Thursday to clear mud from the road.

In the effort to clean and repair these roads, employees are working overtime, and Fuller said they have done an excellent job.

Road crews are normally off each Friday, but will work today and in the coming weeks if needed, Fuller said.

“We’re prepared to work beyond normal hours to try to get everything back in shape,” he said.

City and county boards have both taken steps that might lead to federal reimbursement for storm-related repairs.