"When Ray Hobby heard there had been a landslide at his friend’s house in Maggie Valley two winters ago, he dashed out of work at the Maggie Valley Country Club and headed across town."
"There were mobs of people already there, mostly rescue workers swarming Edward Jones’ property in an attempt to find Jones’ wife, Patricia, who was buried in the landslide and would later be found dead. But Hobby gravitated in a different direction, to the source of the landslide. A state road on the hill 20 feet above his friend’s home had slid away, crashing down the near vertical slope, simultaneously shoving the house off its foundation and burying it."
Although only 6 people have been killed by landslides in the past four years, increasing development on unstable slopes will lead to future slope failures and fatalities. For more information about the Maggie Valley landslide please read the complete article in the Smoky Mountain News, "Who is to blame" by Becky Johnson July 13, 2005. For additional information about this landslide and other Western North Carolina slope failures please visit wncsos.com
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