Terwilliger opened at 11:30 this morning

After nearly four months of being closed, Terwilliger Boulevard was re-opened between Capitol Highway and Barbur Boulevard at 11:30 this morning.

For the past month, crews have been cleaning up landslide debris on a plateau just above the boulevard. The work took place beneath Burlingame Place where an Oct. 5 landslide began that destroyed two homes and damaged five others.

Early this morning, contractors completed their clean-up work to the satisfaction of the Portland Department of Transportation.

The closure of Terwilliger diverted some 6,000 commuters a day. Many used the route to get to and from OHSU. Neighbors on side streets complained about commuters deviating from the designated detour route.

Officials may have pinpointed slide's cause

A front-page article in today's Oregonian describes how new sprinkler system equipment may have been leaking and caused the Oct. 8 Burlingame Place slide.

The slide damaged six homes. One was demolished, and two others are beyond repair and three others have been deemed uninhabitable. Amazingly, no one was injured or killed.

The Oregonian story offers legal opinion that the probable solution now is for a small army of attorneys representing all the interests (including insurance companies and contractors) to sit down and figure out who pays how much to whom.

The story fails to report on the future of the closed stretch of Terwilliger Boulevard that is forcing hundreds of commuters to detour and is increasing traffic through the Hillsdale Town Center.

Day 11 after the Burlingame-Terwilliger landslide

The devastation caused by the Oct. 8 slide between Burlingame Place and Terwilliger Parkway is sinking in.

The City had the wisdom to step up and stabilize the area instead of shoving the responsibility on to the slide's victims. The beleaguered, displaced families were simply unable to assume that additional burden.

The streets remain closed. Thousands of commuters are being detoured around Terwilliger.

The seven affected families now know that insurance policies don't cover the damage. The losses will be in the millions.

Neighbors have stepped up to help. One of the first things they did was establish a web site that leads to other sites dedicated to helping individual families.

I've taken the photo from the main web site page and posted it here because it graphically puts the names on the losses.

The local press is doing a good job of covering the slide and its aftermath. I'm planning to augment that reporting where needed in the on-line The Hillsdale News.

A hike into autumn

Late this afternoon I took one of those walks from our porch that soon have me deep in the quasi-wilderness up the hillside. The network of roads and paths drew me farther and farther from home so that I ended up being gone well into dusk and deep shadow.

For some of the walk my iPod provided a sound track. Bossa Nova’s syncopated lilt carried me along at first. Then I shut it off and listened to the sylvan stillness and my footfall,

Finally, after an hour of trail trudging, traffic on Terwilliger Parkway intruded.

I scrolled to Gene Harris’ lilting “Autumn in New York” as I walked along the parkway, thinking of my own first autumn in New York so long ago, in the fall of ’64.

I was in Peace Corps training at Teachers College, learning Swahili. We lodged at the old Paris Hotel on Amsterdam Avenue, 30 blocks from the Columbia University Campus. Occasionally I’d forsake the rumbling underground A-Train to treat myself to an ambling, leaf-shuffling stroll through Riverside Park.

Harris’ piano (the album is "Blue Gene," if you are interested) brought back memories of those long ago walks on the park's broad arcade. The moms looking over their toddlers at play in the sandboxes. The dog walkers. Roller skaters. The listless Hudson River. Leaves pin-wheeling down.

Autumn in New York.

Autumn on my walk today was patterns and signs. The rhythm of lingering leaves, notes on nature’s staff. A November melody on the black, meandering branches. Slanting sunlight filtered and flickering through yellow and orange.

The jarring 1-800-GOT-JUNK sign along the well-used Fairmount “linear park.” (Here’s a company with no shame.) A walk down Trail 1 on the darkening eastern slope. A worry about invasive ivy and then relief at happening on downed, trail-side piles of vines that volunteers had hacked and pulled from the forest.

A sign inviting hikers to pitch in on the first Saturday of the month. I made a mental note to help.

Street lamps now lit the the parkway and cars cruising its curves. How far I’d been lured by this beguiling autumn evening. I turned for home, back up the darkening hill. The day melted into darkness and night.

We'll soon be left with bones of trees invisibly preparing for rebirth. In that damp cold of December and January, we must find solace and warmth in the promise of spring.