Belington progressive. [volume] (Belington, W. Va.) 1912-1927, 1924-07-17
METHOD FOR PREVENTING
SLIDES ALONG HIGHWAYS

CHARLESTON, w. Va, July 18th
How sliding. hills have been con-
lquered by West Virginia road build
lers, is told in the following article,
Isent out by the State Road Commits
sion:
When Nature upended so much of
the state of West Virginia, she
created knotty problem for road
builders, for since the days when the
first hills were pushed up from level
plains of some of those hills have
been slowly sliding into the valleys.
Indian trails, traversing such slid
ing hillsides, zach spring crept
little nearer to the creek in the valley
perhaps dozen feet, sometimes as
much as hundred, but a hundred
feet made little difference to an In
dian.
Roads built by the settlers showed
the same tickle characteristics as the
Indian trails without causing much
more concern 1t was a little dis.
|turbing to get up in the morning and
find that the road past your. house
was not where you left it when you
went to bed the night before, but a
few hours work, done in the part of
the year when other work was slack,
repaired the damage.
When the road users of the state
began to demand highways surfaced
with something harder than earth,
slipping hillsides became more SER
ious. Hard surfaces are cracked,
twisted, warped and seriously dam
aged when the earth which supports
them moves downward even foot,
while a slip of so feet means utter
ruin If the states hard surfaced
roads were to be protected from this
ruin the hillside slipping must be
stopped. 1t was a man-Gizedl pro-
blem, but the solution has been found.
The first step was investigation.
What made the slipping? Why did
some hills slip while others did not?
Drills were taken to points of
trouble and holes put down to dis
cover what was beneath the surface.
These borings showed that the cen
ter Of the hill was rock; above the
lcenter Of the hill was rock; above
the rock was five, ten or more feet
of clay; between the two was a lay
Ter of shale, fireclay, or soapstone.'
Thawing left the STAY porous when
the spring breakup came, Melting
SHOWS and spring rains saturated it
until it was a mushy, nearly fluid
mass. The water seeped down to
the layer Of soapstone, forming a
greasy, slippery toboggan down
which the clay slowly crept, carry
ling with it trees, fences telephone
poles, culverts, and highways.
1t was first thought that if the
layer of shale could be broken up by
blasting, the slippery surface would
be destroyed and the seepage water
would go down into the rock be-
meath. That was tried, but the
blasts merely pulverized the shale or
Isoapstone layer, the water mixed with
lit more readily, the whole mass be-
came greasier than before, and slipp-
ling was accelerated.
The only other alternative seemed
Ito be build a wall down to the solid
|rock and heavy enough to resist the
pressure of the earth above it, but
the many walls required, built deep
enough and heavy enough to stop
la sliding hill would cost more than
any state could afford. The State
Road Commission, interested in low
costs, saw that some other plans
must be worked out.
The someone suggested that
light wall anchored to the underly-
ing rock with concrete-filled pipe
would stop the slides. This seemed
like good plan, was tried out, and
it worked.
In building such a wall an ordin-
airy well drill, working through a
steel well casing, first makes hole
through the earth and five feet into
poured inside the well casing and is
reinforced with steel rods to form
solid post nearly as high as the wall
is to be. A trench is then dug down
to the rock, the wall is built on the
rock footing, and encases the posts,
which anchor it firmly.
More than this is required however
to support the great load pushing a.
gainst the wall, so pipe similar to
those described above are drilled in on
the uphill side of the roadway. Four
one-inch square bars, encased in con-
crete, connect these anchors with
the wall and form an effective tie
which prevents the wall from over