A now-illegal mining practice led to a rockslide last week that lost Tabbitha Huddy her home and displaced her family.
“It’s been rough. We’re staying on my parents’ floor,” Huddy said. “I guess we’re as good as we can be.”
A rockslide on April 30 left a hole the size of an SUV at Huddy’s home on State Route 329 near Trimble, but no one was injured. A second rockslide occurred Saturday and ended up in her kitchen, Huddy said.
The house is now taped off, and the family is recieving support from the American Red Cross. The house is destroyed and Tabbitha and her husband, Chris, will not be able to rebuild on the property, Huddy said.
“We just want everyone to keep us in their prayers because we lost everything we had,” Huddy said.
The high cliff wall that caused the rocks to fall on Tabbitha and Chris Huddy's house last week was the result of clay mining, and it is the result of a now-illegal mining technique used 100 years ago in the area, said Mark Bruce, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
“Companies would cut straight into a wall and leave a high wall," Bruce said. “A slide like this is always possible when you leave a high wall like this.”
There is nothing specific at this time other than weather and usual erosion that might have caused the slide, Bruce added.
It is unclear at this time whether the Huddy’s house will be condemned.
ODNR already has a plan in place to remove the rocks, but cannot begin until funding is secured, Bruce said, because Gov. John Kasich needs to sign off any request for funding a repair project for these types of rockslides. Bruce said the rocks might not be removed for a month or two, as some equipment might need to be brought in from out of state.
Kasich will sign off on the funding request sometime this week, said Rob Nichols, the governor's press secretary. He said the cost of what Kasich signs off on will be released when the governor sends a letter to the Federal Office of Surface Mining approving ODNR's repair project.
“It’s a labor-intensive process,” Athens Deputy Service Safety Director Ron Lucas said in a previous interview with The Post after a rockslide in an Athens neighborhood last April.“Climbers and heavy equipment are used to do this. One method is boulder busting, where hydraulics are used to break up the bigger stuff.”
Lucas said in the same interview that the risk of rockslides shouldn’t be an ongoing problem in Athens, according to a previous Post article.
Bruce said the Athens rockslide in 2012 was caused by similar conditions as the one that crushed the Huddy residence last week.
The damaged house has been taped off and the road has concrete barriers to prevent rocks from falling in the street, Bruce said.
“We’re confident that the rails will allow the road to be kept open,” Bruce said. “(There is) no threat to public safety as far as people driving down the road goes.”
But for the Huddy family, the damage is already done.
“We lost everything... We’re lucky to have our lives,” she said. “We really don’t know what’s going to happen from here on.”
ld311710@ohiou.edu
