Noblestown Road Landslide Just One Of Many Expected This Time Of Year

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Landslides have become the scourge of commuters and public works crews as hillsides continue to come down and roads are closed.

Noblestown Road is now reopened but this morning when a hillside succumbed to the wet and gravity, the city had no choice to close it.

One scoop at a time, an excavator dug away at the latest hillside to crimp traffic. It's become predictable with lots of rain, a bit of freeze, and warming.

With all of that, something around here is going to slide.

"We are watching more than two dozen places," said Karina Ricks, the Director of Pittsburgh Mobility and Infrastructure.

In this case, it was Noblestown Road that took a hit.

Noblestown Road serves as a relief valve when the Parkway West backs up in the morning and in the evening.

Crews have been long watching the crack along Kerr Street and this morning it let loose.

"We had some soil material come down from the uphill side of the street onto Noblestown and we had to have some lane restrictions this morning," said Ricks.

Noblestown wasn't the only problem of the day.

Public works crews had to clean up a boulder on the McCardle Roadway and Lincoln Boulevard in Lincoln Borough got hit again.

The recent weather is less than reassuring.

"This is the time of year when we have the freeze-thaw cycle when we have the wet weather, the soil gets saturated, the freeze and thaw makes it just a little mushier than we might like," Ricks said. "This is definitely the time of year when we have seen the land movement happen in greater numbers."

This week's weather could cause more unstable hillsides to come down and each time they do, it's thousands of dollars to clean them up.