Harlan County Judge-Executive Dan Mosley declared a state of emergency Thursday after a rock and mudslide reduced a portion of KY 72 to one lane. The slide occurred near Pruitt’s Curve and Highway 2425. It is in the same area where a state project took place within the last two years to prevent rock and mudslides from occurring.

Highway officials were on scene working to clean up the slide and flag traffic but more material continued to fall.

“We have expressed concerns to highway officials over the last several weeks about this area due to reports of debris falling at different times and damaging vehicles,” Mosley said. “Due to the heavy rainfall (Wednesday) combined with already saturated ground, this has caused an even more significant issue.”

More than 300 households in Harlan County have been impacted as a result of the slide.

In the state of emergency declaration, Mosley is asking the state to use all necessary measures within its resources to properly stabilize the mountain side, provide safe experience for those traveling the highway and ensure that those who live in the area can receive all services they are entitled to receive during the process.

Harlan County Emergency Management Director David McGill said the state is currently working on it and have flaggers up monitoring traffic flow.

“Of course, it does slow things down some, and they are working to address that,” said McGill. “We’ve notified the ambulance service, police and fire (on) the situation. They are aware of it, so they can make their adjustments as needed.”

There is no current time frame on how long it will take to for the issue to be resolved. Crews were on scene working throughout the night Thursday in an attempt to make progress.

“I was up there with the deputy judge-executive this morning meeting with them and looking for an update,” said McGill. “We’re actually going back out later this afternoon to get another update to see how things are going as well.”

The mudslide not only created issues for those traveling KY 72, but it also caused some panic for parents of students at Harlan County High School. According to Jeff Phillips, director of public relations with Harlan County Schools, several parents came to pick their children up from school on Thursday.

“There was some misinformation distributed as the slide was progressing. We were informed that the road would be shut down after a period of time, and they didn’t know when it would be reopened,” said Phillips. “We certainly didn’t want to have our students stranded at school and not be able to get home. There were some parents that were told it wouldn’t be safe for school buses, and that was all misinformation.

“I think people really thought they would be separated from their kids. I think there was a lot of panic because of all the delays last year when they were actually doing the project. Fortunately, the state got right on the slide, cleaned it up (and) had one lane open.”