A drain that's supposed to carry mud and debris under the trail had a problem, making part of the trail near Washington Avenue and Interstate 70 a muddy mess.

Rails-To-Trails Project Manager R. "Scat" Scatterday said the trail closure is an inconvenience for many people who make it part of their daily routine to walk, bike or run here.

Crews started to clear away some of the fallen debris Wednesday morning so they could get to the muddy area, and Scatterday said, "I knew it was going to be bad. This is probably 100 times worse than I've ever seen it."

He said he understand the city of Wheeling may have higher priority items on its to-do list, but he hopes cleanup will be finished as soon as possible.

Scatterday said the good news is that the damage is really only to a fence, and the trail itself sustained very little damage. However, the mudslide covered the trail, took out the fence and continued down into a creek.

The slide is about 3/4 of a mile east of the intersection with Washington Avenue and is impassable. Officials said a hillside above the trail started sliding badly on Tuesday, and that's what started the problem.

"Say in the middle of the night if that drain all of the sudden got clogged up with a big rock. Then, you have immediate formation of a lake and then what you see now … the soup bowl," Scatterday said.

Though city crews were cleaning up debris on Wednesday and Scatterday said the trail could be ready for use by next week, it will have to be closed again. A county water line project that could start on April 15 will have the same section of trail closed again for an estimated six to eight weeks.

Officials said crews will be working continuously on that section of the project so they will have the trail closed for the shortest amount of time possible.

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