Two houses slide off cliff after landslide in Draper, Utah.

Two houses slid off a cliffside in Draper, Utah on Saturday, April 22, due to a landslide. Following the event, two neighboring houses were also evacuated.

The collapsed houses had been deemed unsafe past October and their certificates of occupancy were revoked by the City on October 25, 2022.

A geologist with Utah’s Division of Wildlife Resources, Ben Erickson, inspected the area hit by the landslide and commented on how 35-million-year-old volcanic ash deposits were present on site. In addition to this, several smaller landslides were observed in the area, as well as cracks at the bottom of the slope.

The melting snowpacks are also suspected to have helped trigger the landslide by City officials.

Prior to the construction of the houses, the site had been filled with extra soil layers on top of the native ones and helical piles were used to keep the structures stable.

Independent experts had confirmed the collapsed houses were structurally sound and the City had been following on engineering studies regarding the site’s stability for months during construction.