BILLINGS – Large rocks were seen tumbling down the hillside above Mountain View Boulevard on Thursday morning in an attempt to keep homes below safe.
In June a large rock slide damaged a Billings home and crushed a vehicle on Mountain View Boulevard. A large chunk of rock fell from the Rims and slid down into the road as well. Utilities were damaged and a garage sustained substantial damage.
Terracon Consultants were called out to the area to do preventative work on the rims to ensure more rocks wouldn’t fall in that particular area in the future. In order to that though, they had to force some very large boulders off the rim wall.
Men with brightly colored fluorescent safety shirts were seen hanging from the top of the rims placing inflatable pillows between the rim wall and the large rocks in an effort to make them fall.
Geologist Dan Nebel explained that it takes a lot of pressure and timing to get the large rocks to fall. One fell very easily according to Nebel at about 8 a.m., but a second one needed quite a bit of maneuvering.
After the rocks came down the crews cleaned up the area on the rim wall face and eventually Terracon will also clean up the big rock slide below that damaged a garage back in June.
Mountain View Boulevard was temporarily closed during the project.
