How One Wyoming Town Deals with a Landslide Threat

Just a few years after Thomas Ralston moved to Jackson, Wyo., a chimney fire burned down his home. Last month, he was driving when a 3,000-pound boulder fell from a mountain onto the roof of his brand-new truck. So when a police officer visited his condo a few weeks ago to tell him he had an hour to evacuate because a landslide was threatening the building, he responded the only way he could.

He sort of laughed.

"What are you going to do?" he said to himself and shrugged.

Like many in this town of 9,500 people near the Wyoming-Idaho border, it was just the latest skirmish with Mother Nature.

The earth had been slowly moving for weeks on a portion of a hilly area known as the East Gros Ventre Butte. Then this month it sped up, splitting a house in two. On April 9 town officials evacuated residents from more than 40 homes and apartment units.