SANDPOINT — Mud, debris and unstable ground conditions are wreaking havoc on roads and homes across the county.

Crews were working hard Thursday morning to get East River Road, north of Priest River, opened back up for traffic after a mudslide not only closed the road, but knocked out power in the area overnight.

The power was restored by 7 a.m. and Bob Howard, Bonner County Emergency Management director, said the road was opened back up as of Thursday afternoon.

A mile or so north of that slide, the road has been closed for about a week and will remain closed indefinitely due to an unstable hillside causing the road to collapse. Crews will likely not be able to work on the stretch of road until it dries out.

"Until you have stable conditions to work with, you won't gain any ground," Howard said.

Along the same area north of Priest River, a mudslide on Peninsula Road near the intersection with Highway 57 closed the road briefly last week, and a mudslide at milepost 2 on Highway 57 cut off traffic for several hours on Sunday.

Cameron Rasor, acting district ranger for the Priest Lake Ranger District, said Forest Service Road 305 — Bear Paw Road — off of Highway 57 is closed to through traffic. He said the closure is actually on the Pend Oreille County side in Washington, though, where a culvert washed out the road.

Howard said Talache Beach Road in Sagle has one lane open for local traffic only after a landslide in the area destroyed a home last weekend. He said a "large amount of debris" came down in the area of Rapid Lightning Road as well, causing damage to the shoulder of the county road, which is in the process of being repaired.

With the heavy amount of rainfall in October and a good winter snowpack now melting rapidly, the soil is extremely saturated, Howard said.

"As frost comes out and water starts to run, it moves the mud ... we have a lot of debris coming down because of the excessive amount of rain and warm temperatures," he said.

The county road and bridge department has been busy repairing road issues, as well as trying to keep some of that debris from plugging up culverts, Howard said.

"It's a full-time job just trying to keep the culverts cleaned," he said.

Howard said a few sunny days have been good for drying out some of the roads, but there is still frost in some of the shaded areas. Also, with more rain in the forecast, he said he could not give a definitive answer as to whether conditions will begin to improve or not anytime soon.

"I'm hopeful that this last weekend was the peak of the worst of it, but we are going to continue to have issues probably for three or four weeks ... it all depends on weather and the rate of melt," Howard said.

Mary Malone can be reached by email at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @MaryDailyBee.