The wall of mud that slid down a North Langley hill Wednesday morning will mean an epic clean up job for the homeowner who was in the way of the slide.

The driveway, front yard, and carport of Lucas Warkentin are buried under one to two feet of mud.

Warkentin was at home asleep when the slide crossed 264th Street, near the top of the hill that leads down to Glen Valley.

"I woke up at 4: 30," Warkentin said. He wasn't sure what had woken him, so he went right back to bed.

The next thing Warkentin knew, firefighters were pounding on his door at 6: 30 a.m. and telling him he had to get out for his own safety.

"It was still pretty dark out there," he said. "I opened my door and a little bit of mud came into my house."

It would have been worse if Warkentin's front door wasn't up about five steps from his driveway.

The mudslide missed the bulk of the house, but it did slam into his carport, and the Dodge Charger parked there.

Late last week, Warkentin had barely been able to inspect the vehicle, but it had been slammed up against the wall, and it appeared the wheels had been turned sideways. A window may have been blasted open by the mud, and he fears the car is a write-off.

Warkentin was allowed back in Wednesday afternoon, and he still has power and gas at his home.

In some ways, he's lucky, he said. His car may be wrecked, and his house had a gutter torn off, but the mud was just to the south of the building, for the most part. If the bulk of the slide had come down a little farther to the north, it would have hit his home square on.

Warkentin isn't sure what the cleanup will cost.

"I'm not insured for this," he said.

On Saturday, the Township went down to Warkentin's property and helped clean up the mud from his driveway and around his house.

That seems only fair, considering that part of the debris included about five large concrete roadside barricades that had been swept down along with the mud.

Terry Veer, manager of roads and drainage for the Township, said both streets hit by mudslides, including 264th and 252A Street, were fully open by Friday night last week.

On 252A, the Township has notified a landowner that there still appears to be some unstable material above the slope.

As far as the Township's geotechnical engineers can determine, both slides were simply caused by a huge amount of rain saturating the slopes.

However, because these slides were larger than the normal ones seen in Langley, the Township is doing more analysis than usual.

Rock has been used to shore up part of the slope in the 7700 block of 264th to prevent another slide, Veer said.

mclaxton@langleyadvance.com