Repair of the West River Parkway slope failure

摘要

On June 19, 2014, after historic sustained and heavy rains in Minnesota's Twin Cities, an approximate 10,000-square-foot section of bluffs along the Mississippi River, adjacent to West River Parkway, failed. The resulting mudslide covered the parkway with over 4,000 cu- bic yards of debris and soil and exposed Fairview Health Services-University of Minnesota Medical Center (UMMC) hospital structures at or near the bluff's edge and a Minnesota Park and Recreation Board (MPRB) property line. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) officially declared the site a disaster on July 21, 2014, and Hennepin County, where the failure occurred, was added as an area eligible to receive reimbursement for disaster-related expenses. Barr Engineering Co. was hired to implement monitoring of the slope and adjacent infrastructure, perform field investigations needed for final repairs, and engineer temporary and permanent repairs. This paper presents some of the geotechnical challenges associated with the project.