A bunch of upscale home build on hillsides above Boise, ID are sliding down hill. This winter saturated the ground and away they went. When I lived there 40 years ago, they were building like this. They cut a slice out of a hill, use the dirt to create a wider flat spot, and build a house on it. Even back then people were saying that sooner or later they were going to go and it looks like this is the year.
I really feel sorry the homeowners but this isn't unexpected. It was more like inevitable. 30 years ago I knew some people who bought a house up there. The house was on solid ground but the excavated dirt was pushed out and became the back lawn. Years later, after a long wet period, their back lawn headed downhill leaving the back steps as a shear drop off.
Those hills have been there unmoving for many thousands of years but when their support is dug out for a house, there's nothing left to hold them up.

Of course the homeowners are looking for someone to blame. They're filing suits against the highway district (for what I don't know), against the city, and against the developers.

Wow!
We get some slides over on this side in our mountains, but never seen any like those out west.

Looks like something taken out of California, happens here all the time... its like people just don't get the idea of building on stable ground!

Phil

As a side note, that bluff in the middle of this pic is called Table Rock. You can barely make out a 60' cross on it. It was erected by the Boise Jaycees 60 years ago and the anti-Christians have been trying to bring it down ever since. It's on 4 square feet of private land owned by the Jaycees. The ACLU claims that the Jaycees bought the spot illegally from the Idaho Dept of Corrections in an auction in the 70's and it's still a war. They placed the only bid of $100 which was the appraised value at that time. If you're gonna hate God, you're gonna hate him...and they certainly do.

This ground wasn't unstable until the bulldozers made it that way. A retaining wall just can't replace a natural slope.

Rock Chuck: That is a sad situation and a shame but that does not diminish the poor judgement (stupidity?) of the engineers/designers of that subdivision to begin with.
Hope they all had good insurance.
I have a feeling the lawsuits are gonna fly (lawyers get rich - and thats another tragedy!)!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

At least it was not a trailer park. Those guys can't catch a break.

Quit building McMansions in stoopid places.

Everybody wants a 'starter castle' just a little further up the hill than everyone else.

And as long as the money is put in the right hands, it all gets a green light.

Agree!!!

I've never seen anything like that... hill giving away, but what the op said surely makes sense.

Reminds me of what happens around here... build you house in a low spot and your gonna get wet!

these same people bitch about the deer & elk in their yards in the winter too........

And I'm sure they needed those gigantic houses too. Maybe if they didn't build them the size of a small mall, they wouldn't have so much trouble with them sliding down the hill.

Man has a long history of building housing in locations that are not conductive to long term habitation: Flood planes, river banks, slopes of volcanoes, below sea level, soil prone to liquifaction in earthquakes, on fill, etc. I'm sure most of our houses could be damaged or destroyed by natural forces if our time is up.

I don't buy that the soil was stable until it was cut, I'm sure it's been sliding off and on for centuries. The sliding has simply not been noticed due to a lack of structures to make the sliding noticeable.

There's some really nice homes on those hills

Gravity works - inexorably!
People are thoughtless - inexorably!
Water goes downhill - inexorably!

Some folks are stupid - constantly!
I live on a small hill that isn't going anywhere soon - barring a MAJOR catastrophic event! (Then I hope I'm still around to GAS)

Many folks will camp under a cliff, among large fallen boulders - not even wondering where they came from. I've witnessed on rock the size of a cabin fall off a rimrock - and seen the aftermath of several more. Some, I thought "I'm glad I wasn't here when that happened" And "That ain't the way it looked last month!"

"STUFF" goes downhill!

That's the Deep Pocket Principle. The developer will fold like a bad hand before he pays out anything.

Geotechnical engineers make good money - most don't want to pay the added cost up front for an investigation and report.