Robert Service Way will remain closed for a few more weeks as the city looks to implement a plan to make the area safe, says Mayor Laura Cabott.

She and senior city officials held a press conference Thursday afternoon near the bottom of the Apr. 30 slide to explain the situation.

“We wanted to provide better information to the public so they know what the situation is right now and plans going forward,” Cabott said.

The mayor said she would have liked to say the road would be open in a few more days.

“That is not going to happen.”

She said the city engineering staff have been working with other engineers in the city along with a consulting engineer from down south to assess the situation.

“They have advised us what to do, and what we need to do is probably going to take a few weeks,” said Cabott.

Survey instruments have been set up near the slide to monitor it. There continues to be movement.

It’s estimated the volume of dirt that came down is approximately 2,000 cubic metres, or the equivalent of about 200 dump truck loads.

The slide took out the White Pass railway track, a light standard and the guard rails before coming to rest on the Yukon River ice. The Millennium Trail is also blocked.

Security has been set up along Robert Service Way on both sides of the slide to ensure nobody accesses the area.

Approximately 200 metres south of the new mudslide is a slide that came down last year.

Water was flowing out of the 2021 slide, with enough volume that it sounded like a small waterfall.

The city had already planned an assessment of the escarpment this year, prior to the mudslide.

Tracy Allen, the city’s director of operations, said they’ve noticed ongoing shifting in the new slide.

It has moved about 120 millimetres (four-plus inches) in the last 10 days or so, which is quite significant in terms of soil movement, she said.

Allen said there is the danger that more material in the slide area could still shear away.

Tension cracks as wide as 20 millimetres have been observed.

Where the slide broke loose, there remains a jagged edge of more dirt above.

City engineer Michael Abbott said once it’s safe to get in there to work, staff intend to build a wall using corrugated sheet metal steel pounded into the ground.

The cost of building the wall and clearing the debris is estimated at $450,000, he said.

Abbott explained they’ll do their best to remove the material that has reached the river without disturbing the river bottom.

He expects crews could be in there beginning in a week or so, once the required material for the wall has been moved to the site.

A crane will have to be mobilized, he explained.

Abbott said a special piece of equipment required to pound in the sheet metal is coming up from Alberta.

The work erecting the wall and clearing the debris will be done at the same time, more or less, he explained.

“Once we have all the material ready and onsite, we are going to get in there and monitor the slide in real time as we do the work to make sure it is safe while we are working,” he said.

The city engineer said crews will monitor visually and with the survey instruments while onsite.

“We are hoping to have it open in a few weeks,” he said.

Abbott said the sheet metal wall is being described as temporary, though it may become part of the permanent solution, which has not been determined.

The steel wall buys the city at least a year to look at a permanent barrier, which could include a concrete block wall or some sort of berm, he said.

“It gives us time to fully assess the situation more and come up with what we feel is the best long-term plan, which this could be incorporated into,” he said.

In assessing the situation, Abbott said, they did consider triggering another slide to shake loose any dangerous material, in much the same way as highway crews trigger avalanches to remove the threat.

They ruled it out because they were not confident they could do it in a manner that did not cause more damage, he said.

Cabott thanked the public for what she described as being co-operative and patient, given the inconvenience the road closure has caused.

She continued to encourage residents to do what they can to reduce traffic volumes by carpooling, taking the bus or using active transportation like cycling.

Seward, Alaska cleaning up its landslide ... see p. 14.