It’s taken about three weeks because of wet weather, but the city has removed two different landslides of soil and vegetation that on March 14 had slumped onto Gertie Johnson Road during a heavy rainfall.

Residents of the five homes located below the road returned to their homes Monday evening after being evacuated following the first slide, which occurred early in the morning of March 14.

The contractor, Liden Land Development and Evacuation Inc. of Poulsbo, spent Monday cleaning up the road, most of which runs parallel to Rolling Bay’s shoreline on the northeast side of the island.

Work on the landslides was delayed, according to Interim City Manager Brenda Bauer, because there had been intermittent rain for a couple of weeks and the hillside above the road remained saturated and made work below it unsafe until recent days.

The city had hoped to have Liden begin removing the 300 cubic yards of vegetation and soil on Friday, But persistent rain delayed the start for a day.

The part of the narrow road that runs above the homes has a 200-foot-long crack on the downslope part of it. The crack was exacerbated by one of the slides, but, according to officials from the city and Aspect Consulting, the road showed no signs of buckling over the weekend despite having heavy equipment – a Caterpillar and dump trucks – working on it both days.

When the road dries out, Bauer said, Liden will sawcut the cracked part of of the road, patch and then pave it.