Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Crew of Volunteers Demolish Home Destroyed by Landslide

The home destroyed in last month’s landslide in North Salt Lake was finally demolished Wednesday.

Members of the Utrilla family stood and watched as backhoes ripped into their home. Every few minutes the work would stop and someone would run onto the pile of rubble to recover an item left behind. The home was destroyed early in the morning on August 5th after a landslide pushed it off of its foundation.

“This whole thing is coming down by volunteers. So, this is wonderful,” says Rick Scherbel.

He’s a project manager with Eaglepointe Development and has worked to organize all of the volunteer work, including setting up a website where people can donate to help build a new home for the Utrilla family.

“We have approximately $350,000, but we’re still short quite a bit, you know, to be able to get this down, get the house in, and get it furnished again,” he says.

North Salt Lake City Mayor Len Arave says the reason the house wasn’t demolished sooner is because they wanted to make sure removing it wouldn’t cause the hill to slide more. He says he’s glad it’s finally coming down because it was starting to cause issues for the community.

“Having the house there I think is traumatic for a lot of people around here," Arave says. "And hopefully removing the house will remove some of the trauma for those people.”

Geotechnical engineers on the site say the slide has stabilized even with the recent heavy rainfall. With the house removed, mitigation work can now begin. The engineers say they hope to have a plan in place by the middle of October. 

KUER is listener-supported public radio. Support this work by making a donation today.