WHEELWRIGHT – At least one family who was evacuated in Wheelwright following a mudslide has returned home.

Misty and Joey Tackett and their four children returned to their home along Branham Street in Wheelwright this past week, something they thought might never happen.

During a first town hall meeting arranged by displaced residents after the slide, Tackett said she and her husband had more or less given up returning home. The family was living with relatives at Mud Creek at the time.

Now the Tacketts and at least two other families, according to Brittany Combs, a representative with Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, are able to return.

The Tacketts and about a dozen other families were asked to evacuate on Feb. 6 when the ridgeline along Branham Street slipped several feet, sending trees falling and raising the foundations of the homes there. Four households were moved out from Branham Street and the remaining evacuations were for homes below the ridge that would have been in danger if the slide were to have given completely.

Following the town hall meeting, held about two weeks after the city asked the residents to leave, Wheelwright Mayor Marlee Sammons told citizens that evaluations were being made of the slide and that crews would be assessing and working to fix the problem that week.

According to Combs, construction to stabilize the slide has begun. She said administrators with the Office of Surface Mining, who said the slide was due to what was later described as a “coal bank” located behind the ridgeline homes, are meeting this week in Floyd County on a related problem in a neighboring community and that Kentuckians for the Commonwealth hoped to “weave” updates and additional information into that meeting.

Misty and Joey Tackett had been two people who had been working closely with Combs since she visited the city to coordinate the first town hall meeting. Now that they are back in their home, Combs says she has talked with them less in the past week but has informed them that the Office of Surfacing Mining has agreed to remedy the problem through the ongoing construction, but has held firm in saying they are not responsible for any damages that occurred during the most recent slide.

Engineers who have worked in the past in the Wheelwright area told city leaders last month that this slide was the third such incident in the city.