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In Mt. Adams, Did The Dirt Move First Or Was It The Wall?

Jason Fair
/
WCPO
The city's building department says the slide compromised decks behind buildings on Oregon Street.

With heavy rain predicted this weekend, crews are putting tarps over a Mt. Adams landslide that has already damaged two homes and a tavern.

A retaining wall collapsed early Wednesday sending concrete blocks into two Baum Street homes and forcing the residents to evacuate. The City View Tavern deck on Oregon Street is also unstable according to the director of the Cincinnati Buildings and Inspections Department, Art Dahlberg.

In a Thursday news conference he told reporters, "The ultimate question is did the wall fail, and because it failed, it allowed dirt to move forward? Or did we have movement in the dirt and was the hill moving because of the construction operations as excavations were being done?"

Metropolitan Design and Development built the privately owned wall. Engineers are investigating the collapse and will give Dahlberg a stabilization plan before being allowed to rebuild.

Dahlberg hopes to have answers in a few days. "I think we've made it clear to the geotechnical engineers that this is a top priority and we have to have answers and we have to have answers quickly."

Ann Thompson has decades of journalism experience in the Greater Cincinnati market and brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to her reporting.