The area experienced about 3 inches of rain preceding the landslide, leaving the land highly saturated. This likely exacerbated the landslide, as saturated land is more prone to slippage than dry land, depending on the material. Additionally, we know that landslide area was not cohesive, as it included not only natural soil material, but also inorganic local debris, like trash dumped in that zone. While the slight forested nature of the hill could allow for a little improved ground stability through root presence, the non-cohesive nature of the area's ground material coupled with the saturation due to the storm meant optimal landslide conditions.

Through modeling, I found that failure plane angle had a significant impact on whether or not land would slide, as did ground cohesion. The as increase in the former led to an extreme reduction in resisting force, which transitioned the condition rapidly from "safe" to landslide." While the other factors also influenced the presence or lack of a landslide, failure plane angle seemed the strongest, though perhaps I scaled the several different modeled levels disproportionately from how I did with each other factor.