Geotechnical assessment completed as crews work to protect Penticton homes from slide

Residents of a mobile home park in Penticton, B.C., must wait another day to learn when they might be allowed to return to their homes.

Residents of a mobile home park in Penticton, B.C., must wait another day to learn when they might be allowed to return to their homes.

Twenty-five units in the Pleasant Valley Mobile Home Park were ordered evacuated Tuesday and a state of local emergency was declared when city officials spotted a large and potentially unstable boulder on the hillside above the south Okanagan homes.

A geotechnical assessment was completed Wednesday and the city says the evacuation order remains posted while the rock and slope around it are stabilized.

Emergency Operations Centre director Kristen Dixon says the retaining wall at the bottom of the slope is being raised to better protect nearby properties.

While that work is underway, her statement says crews are deciding how to handle the fractured boulder higher on the hillside that could break off and cause a slide.

Dixon says it’s hoped the evacuation order can be reduced once the extension of the retaining wall is finished, and she says that decision could come later in the day.

“As the work progresses, we will continue to assess the status of the evacuation order and provide updates to the impacted residents and the public as required,” Dixon says in the statement.