PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — There was traffic trouble for people traveling to and from Mount Washington this morning. A small landslide shut down McArdle Roadway for the second time just this winter.

The slide happened right around 5 a.m. before the morning rush.

Fortunately, the branches and dirt and came down in the slide didn’t actually hit the road. They were blocked by a retaining wall.

“The wall did its job. It held back everything that slid,” said Rob Kaczorowski, of Pittsburgh Public Works. “Our crews came up here and removed the debris from the wall, from behind the wall, actually leaving an extra space in case something else does slide.”

Kaczorowski says with rain in the forecast, another landslide is a real possibility, especially this time of year when the ground is saturated and there’s a lot of freezing and thawing.

“We’ll keep an eye on it and monitor it to make sure that its safe, and we’ll keep the road open as much as possible,” Kaczorowski said.

The roadway between the Liberty Bridge and Grandview Avenue was reopened around 10:30 a.m. Although the problem was fixed relatively quickly this time, city leaders are looking for a long term solution.

You may remember, just last year, farther up the road, a wall was built to stop sliding in that location. Kaczorowski says right now, there just isn’t money for another similar project.

“It’s been ongoing discussions between the mayor and council members and myself,” Kaczorowski added. “So, it’s getting to the point now, we are going to solicit federal and state funds to see if we can come up with some type of funding source to assist the city in situations like this.”

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