Photo by NIAMH COOMEY Pictured are some of the hundreds of displaced gravestones at Mt. Zion Cemetery a year after a major landslide. Cleanup efforts are being prepared.

WHEELING — One year after a devastating landslide at Mt. Zion Cemetery in Bethlehem that displaced hundreds of graves, efforts are underway to clean up.

Several contractors won bids to work on different aspects of the upcoming multimillion-dollar project, which will start sometime in the beginning of May.

Heavy rain storms April 3, 2024, caused the slide that toppled around 275 headstones and filled a section of the cemetery with loose dirt, rocks, branches and debris. Those who care for the cemetery are committed to seeing it get cleaned up.

“Once this happened, you know, I ain’t giving up on it,” said Charles Yocke, who helps maintain the grounds of the cemetery on a volunteer basis.

Yocke said he recently did a walk-through of the cemetery with a group of seven contractors. Four of the seven bid on the project.

Cast-Baker Construction was the lowest bidder for the removal of the dirt piles and hauling out the loose headstones, which will be the first phase of the project.

Valley Fence will be installing a chain link fence around the area so that cleanup can safely begin. This part of the project was made possible by funds from Irene Meagle, who was buried in Mt. Zion in 1999 and left money to be used for maintaining the property.

Former Gov. Jim Justice presented the Wheeling Mt. Zion Cemetery Corp. a $2 million check after the incident last year to go toward the repairs. Yocke noted that local Delegates Shawn Fluharty, D-Ohio, and Ryan Weld, R-Brooke, were a big help in pushing for this money.

Though the funding from the state is far from covering the whole project, Yocke said, it will go toward cleaning up the dirt pile and removing the grave stones, a process that could take between 30 and 60 days.

Yocke said the project has been turned down for several federal funding requests.

Yocke started doing work on the cemetery after visiting his mother’s grave one day and noticing the grass had grown over 2 feet tall. He and Paula Stein have volunteered their time to the cemetery for around a decade.

Though they initially had a group of volunteers who helped with maintenance, after several weeks it dwindled to fewer and fewer people.

“We’ve done it for 10 years, we’ve always looked after it, me and Paula,” Yocke said.

Stein and Yocke run a Facebook page dedicated to updates about the cemetery and an oversight board that is responsible for organizing the cleanup efforts. Everything they do for the cemetery is on a volunteer basis, Yocke emphasized.

“When you do a burial of someone you’re putting someone to rest. The family feels relieved, just the look on their face, you relieved the pain from them. It just makes you feel good,” Yocke said. “We haven’t taken a cent off of it, it’s all volunteer.”

Once the dirt piles and loose graves are safely removed, another contractor will need to come in to stabilize the hillside and ensure there isn’t a risk for future landslides. This work, as well as reinstalling the headstones, will require another bidding process, Yocke said.

The project will likely be at least several months in the making.

Yocke noted that Wheeling is expected to get several inches of rain in the next few days, which poses a concern that more dirt could fall down the hillside, worsening conditions.

“The dirt’s just laying up there, it’s ready for more to come down,” Yocke said.