MAGGIE VALLEY, N.C. (AP) -- Residents evacuated after a mudslide have been urged to stay away from their mountainside homes as the approach of more rain threatens to further wash out a slope that officials say is unstable and dangerous.
"They're talking about weeks, maybe longer," resident Betty Miner said. "There's still a huge pile of debris that's very big and could come down again."
She and her husband Lucien were home when a 30-foot wall of mud and rocks swept across their road Friday night and cleared a swath 175 feet wide in places, The Asheville Citizen-Times reported Monday. The Miners were evacuated from the Walnut Acres subdivision near Maggie Valley quickly after the mudslide, but left all their possessions and two cats behind.
Emergency workers evacuated 40 people from a dozen homes along the steep and winding road cut off by the slide. The Miners and others were taken back to their homes by emergency officials on all-terrain vehicles just long enough to gather belongings.
Investigators said recent heavy rain and snow were factors in the mudslide. Forecasters said 2 1/2 inches of rain fell in the area Friday on top of at least 6 inches of slowly melting snow. More rain expected for this week could bring more earth sliding down Buck Mountain, officials said.
Maggie Valley Police Chief Scott Sutton said residents near the slide area are not prohibited from going home, but none has chosen to risk staying.
"The residents are complying with us. Basically we're at that standstill until we see what happens with the debris," Sutton said.
State geologists studied the mountainside from the ground and from aboard a National Guard helicopter on Sunday. Haywood County commissioners declared a state of emergency in the first step toward seeking state and federal aid for the disaster.
A 2003 landslide in the area killed a woman whose home was crushed. Five people died in a 2004 landslide about 30 miles away.
Haywood County officials hadn't yet determined whether homes affected by Friday's landslide were built according to a 2006 county ordinance regulating building on steep slopes, county spokesman David Teague said.
