30 people came to the Tillamook library Thursday night, Jan. 17 to hear the latest on the countys closure of a section of the Cape Meares Loop Road.

The meeting was organized by county public works director Liane Welch as part of the informational outreach effort to the community. Among those in attendance were sheriff Andy Long, county emergency manager Gordon McCraw, Tillamook Fires Eric Swanson, and county commissioner Tim Josi.

The slide is unpredictable, Welch told the audience. It didnt move for several years. It has since moved 9 feet. We think it was triggered last November by the heavy rains, she said. We first started seeing bubbling there November 21, she said. The road continues to buckle and move. The land is moving northwest, toward the ocean.

Welch referred to a 1999 report by then-state geologist George Priest that said the road problems were part of a much larger slide. One of the concerns then was the truck traffic, but the truck traffic is not triggering the slide, Welch emphasized. LIDAR maps from the state Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI) show a large active landslide area stretching from the Oceanside Water Districts water tank all the way to the ocean. Most of the rest of the hill is designated either a potential landslide or prehistoric landslide (the latter is a designation for an area thats slid before). The fracture goes clear to the top of the mountain, the audience was told. The Oceanside Water Districts tank isnt moving, but the ground around it is moving, Welch said.

The only stable part of the hill is the basalt outcropping on which the Cape Meares lighthouse is built. The outcropping, which is large, is located immediately south of the slide area.

Closure of the sliding section of Cape Meares Loop Road was requested for safety reasons, Welch said. There have been four landslides on Bayocean Road this year, she said.

The county will station a backhoe at the Memaloose boat ramp, Welch said, will work with the PUD where power lines are affected, and will call 911 with estimates of the time needed to clear a slide. Tillamook Fire will dispatch a fire truck when theres an ambulance call to the area, she said, and theres a cache of medical supplies at the Cape Meares fire hall. Sheriff Andy Long said his deputies will check the area every few hours while on patrol, giving county public works an extra set of eyes.

If necessary, the Coast Guard can do medical transport by boat a boat can get to the Bayocean dike road at high tide. A Coast Guard helicopter is also an option, but it has to come from Astoria, she said. (The Coast Guard helicopter also needs an area about 150 x 150 feet to land in, Eric Swanson advised.)

We are working with Stimson (Lumber) on secondary access via forest roads, Welch told the audience. We want redundancy in our ability to respond to Cape Meares, she said. There are only two roads, emergency manager Gordon McCraw said, and the other one has a slide problem, too. Welch agreed. If we get another Happy Camp slide, Oceanside is isolated, she said.