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Landslides Put Colorado Springs Homes on Brink of Collapse

Prolonged May rains have fractured several neighborhoods.

(TNS) - Several neighborhoods in southwest Colorado Springs have been fractured by landslides since the prolonged May rains, adding to a growing list of natural disasters that the city of Colorado Springs must oversee.

City officials are paying particular attention to one home just south of Cheyenne Mountain Boulevard. It towers above its neighbors and could spell disaster for everything downhill, from homes to sewer and utility lines. The home rests on the edge of what looks like an crumbling earthquake fault, a jagged line that cuts through rocks and Gambel oak as it makes its way several hundred feet down a hill overlooking downtown. The massive crack grows at least an inch a day, cutting closer to the house, which has lost its front yard and patio to the landslide.

While geologic experts have yet to survey the risk to the home, the prognosis is not good, said Tim Mitros, the city's stormwater manager. When Mitros first saw the home two weeks ago, the crack slicing through the front yard was just over a foot deep. But a Tuesday visit revealed a mud wall several feet high, lifting the house above the front lawn.

"Oh, my gosh, this is huge," Mitros said as he peered over the crack's edge on Tuesday.

The landslide does not appear to be stopping.

"You really can't stop it," Mitros said. "It may subside for years."

The homeowner, who declined to comment , hopes to hold onto the circa-1964 home on Constellation Drive despite the ominous 8-foot wall drop from front door to his front lawn. But the land will have to be stabilized -- either by the homeowner or local and federal government -- to ensure the safety of those living below, Mitros said.

"I see his plight," Mitros said of the homeowner. "But the problem is I've got all these people down there calling me."

In most cases, there is little that can be done for homes perched in dangerous landslide territory. If the land can't be stabilized, the safest and most economic answer for both the homeowner and the city is to turn to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for a buyout. Even if experts determine that the landslide won't cut further beneath the house, the cost of repairing the land might be too great for the homeowner to bear, Mitros said.

Following record-breaking spring moisture, several homes along the west side of Colorado Springs are now perched on the edge of a landslide. Since May, moisture seeping down to bedrock has triggered landslides from Rockrimmon to the Broadmoor Bluffs area, where Mitros is surveying the latest round of homes impacted by landslides. Landslides have been reported along Broadmoor Bluffs Drive, along 8th Street in the Cheyenne Mountain area and in the lower Skyway Boulevard neighborhood.

Western Colorado Springs is landslide territory, and since 1996 the city has required builders to test building sites for landslide potential. Maps from the Colorado Geological Survey show that landslides have occurred, or could still occur, in many western El Paso County neighborhoods. The maps place all of the neighborhoods between Cheyenne Mountain and Fort Carson in landslide zones, in addition to areas in Manitou Springs, Mountain Shadows and near Ute Valley Park. West of U.S. Highway 24, landslide zones cover Cascade and neighborhoods across the highway from Green Mountain Falls.

As with the home on Constellation Drive, many homes in those neighborhoods predate landslide requirements when it comes to building. But once a landslide happens, there is often little that can be done to reverse the earth's movement.

"The problem with these landslides is that they are so massive that you really can't do much," Mitros said.

Four homes perched above a landslide in Rockrimmon have been fortunate -- once the city filled in a creek channel below the homes, two of the homes were stabilized, and work is beginning to stabilize a third.

But until the Colorado Geological Survey can take a look at the slide on Constellation Drive, that home's fate remains unknown, Mitros said.

"I hate to say it, but his only option might be FEMA and take a buyout," he said.

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©2015 The Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colo.)

Visit The Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colo.) at www.gazette.com

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