How to protect your home from a mudslide

If you live next to a dirt hill, you might wonder how to protect your home from a mudslide during heavy rain. 

If the hill is not properly protected during a rainstorm, a mudslide can happen.

Mudslides can be dangerous and deadly. In Everett, Washington, a large mudslide took the lives of 41 individuals in April 2014.

Here are a few solutions to protect your house or street from mudslides:

Permanent solutions

• Planting vegetation: This is the best and most long term solution to erosion.
• When trees and other plants are planted on the hill, the roots keep the soil in place, preventing against mudslides.

Short term solutions
If planting vegetation is not possible or too late for the coming rainy season, here are two different short term solutions that can still protect your home.

• Sandbags are a great way of protecting against mudslides.
• Be sure to fill the bags with gravel (not sand).
• The gravel allows water to flow through but stops soil, avoiding a mudslide.
• Cover open soil with jute and landscape staples
• Adding jute (held down using landscape staples) to a recently burned area of land or exposed hill (no trees or vegetation) is another great way to protect against mudslides.

Learn more:

14x26 poly sandbags

Jute netting