Slide Twists Mobile Home ‘Like Pretzel’ Two Hospitalized, Idaho Town’S Connection With Highway Closed

A large landslide thundered down a steep hillside late Wednesday in Juliaetta, Idaho, sweeping away a mobile home and two people.

The couple, who were asleep at the time, remained hospitalized Thursday night at St. Joseph Regional Medical Center in Lewiston.

Neither suffered life-threatening injuries, even though their home was splintered by the landslide down McGary Grade.

“It’s just a vertical face strewn with pieces - most of them about the size of a chair,” Nez Perce County commissioner Jim Soyk said Thursday after surveying the damage. “Except for the frame. It was at the bottom twisted like a pretzel.”

Bryon Umphenour was listed in fair condition and his wife, Kellie, in good condition, a St. Joseph’s nursing supervisor said.

At 17 percent grade, the McGary Grade roadway is the county’s steepest gravel road, Soyk said. The landslide happened about a half-mile from Juliaetta in a sparsely populated area.

Authorities believe a buildup of moisture on McGary Grade caused the slide.

They estimate as much as 30,000 yards of dirt and rock rumbled down the hillside.

Neighbors reported the slide about 11:55 p.m. Wednesday, said Nez Perce County sheriff’s Sgt. Darrell Jones.

“It moved very quickly down the grade and across the road,” Soyk said. “It took out a mobile home and swept them to the bottom. Miraculously they survived.

“There’s not enough debris at the bottom of that hill to identify it as a mobile home.”

A stove and mattress were the only things visible when sheriff’s deputies and paramedics arrived. The couple, whose ages were not available, were conscious and yelling for help.

It did not appear that they had been buried.

Soyk said Kellie Umphenour reportedly managed to grab onto a tree during the slide. She eventually ended up at the base of the hill among the debris about 400 feet from where the mobile home had been positioned.

Neighbors awakened by the disturbance heard the couple’s screams and called for help.

The slide “picked it up, slammed it into a tree and that seems to be what split it to pieces,” Soyk said. “It’s just incredible.”

A large mound of debris covered about 400 feet of roadway on Thursday. Tiny streams of water trickled down the hillside.

Nez Perce officials are monitoring the hillside for further slide activity before clearing the debris. They hope to have the McGary Grade roadway, Juliaetta’s main connection to Highway 12, open within two weeks, Soyk said.

Until the road reopens, residents must follow a 10-mile alternate route to the highway.

The area experienced a similar, smaller landslide about 15 years ago, but is not prone to slides, Soyk said.