Snohomish County, Washington

[Cedar]

The Snohomish sheriff warned people to stay clear of trestles or bridges or anywhere near the Stillaguamish River downstream of the slide. "Water could break through at any moment," the sheriff's office tweeted.

http://blogs.seattletimes.com/today/2014/03/mudslide-carries-at-least-one-house-onto-snohomish-county-highway/
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/22/us/washington-landslide/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Cedar

[Biohazard]

I listened to the event unfold on my scanner. 3 now dead and several critical including a 6 month old.

[Cedar]

Mandatory evacuations ordered from Oso to Stanwood, Washington after deadly mudslide clogs Stillaguamish River.

Cedar

[Cedar]

18 people still missing
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Washington-slide-kills-3-searchers-seek-survivors-251780401.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/23/us-usa-mudslide-washingtonstate-idUSBREA2L0R020140323
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/23/us/washington-landslide/index.html?hpt=hp_t2


I have stood at this one before
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hope_Slide

It is the a reason of why I don't choose land to live at,

Cedar

[antsyaunt]

This is just awful.  Do any TSP people live near there? 

[Cedar]

4th person confirmed dead

cedar

[JerryS]

I live in Snohomish County.

This can sum up the core problem around here at the moment:

http://www.enlight-inc.com/total_rainfall_2007.html

Clearing Total as of March 20: 15.955 inches
Forest Total as of March 20: 8.835 inches

That is 4x the total rainfall for March compared to 2013.

There have been smaller mudslides in the general area.. There were I think 3 last week that blocked the Everett <-> Seattle commuter train Monday-Thursday.
Friday when I was riding the train you could see the water seeping out of the hills.. Very visible streams of it.

Unfortunately slides are a risk when the ground is saturated like that.

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Blocked-Wash-river-trickling-through-big-mud-wall-251805781.html

The risk of the river breaking through that mud wall quickly is still there.
Hopefully the river will slowly cut a new channel.  But if we get more heavy rain I'd bet on something more sudden.

[Cedar]

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/3/23/wash-mudslide-kills3searchersseeksurvivors.html
8 dead found. Lots still missing. The slide is covering a full square mile. Too dangerous to get emergency crews in all of it.

Cedar

[Smurf Hunter]

Thankfully all my friends and relatives up north are safe and accounted for.   The amount of earth that has moved is just surreal.  People say it reminds them of Mt. St. Helens eruption 30+ years ago.

[Cedar]

108 names on list of missing or unaccounted for in Washington mudslide - AP

Cedar

[mountainmoma]

That's alot of people -- I had no idea this many were missing

[Cedar]

Yeah.. I thought it was still at 18 missing.. Yikes!

Cedar

[Coctailer]

Last report I got was 8 dead, 108 missing.

Prayers sent.

[endurance]

I was doing a little google-fu after seeing a local map of the area and saw something quite disturbing.  Admittedly, I googled what appeared to be the address where the mudslide happened based on a news report and I can't get confirmation the address is accurate.  My original intent was to see the neighborhood density of the area using a satellite view on google maps, however, while looking at the satellite view I noticed what appears to be a scarp indicating previous movement of this same section of land that slid.  If so, with just a little basic geology knowledge, this whole thing could have been foreseen well in advance (like decades in advance).



Note the roughly north/south scarp along the left side of the photo (you can google east Steelhead Drive, Arlington, WA to see the actual image you can zoom into).  That's a classic warning sign I learned about in my Geology 101 class in college 20+ years ago.


From National Geographic

I have no intent to point fingers here, just noting that this might have been a tragedy that could have been foreseen well in advance if the right person in the right position had stepped up and said something.

Also, back to my original mission, it looks like there's about 25-30 or so homes that were in what appears to be the impact area.  That obviously jives with the current missing count of 108.  This whole thing is just beyond tragic.

[mountainmoma]

good eye. But, I dont think there is any such eyes that look at the geology before houses are built ?

[LJH]

I read that some of the houses lost were 100+ years old. Other than a few scientists who studied such things, I doubt too many folks were aware of the warning signs back then. And, it took all this time for something to break loose. 

There's a very well known longarm quilting teacher named Nicole Webb. She teaches all over the country and I've met her a couple of times at big quilt shows. She lost her daughter, daughters fiancée and both parents to this slide.

This so sad, bringing back that queasy-guts feeling I got when two people were killed by a giant rock that came down a cliff in the tiny town of Rockville, UT. I drive past that every time I have to go into the city. They got the bodies out the next day but everything else is untouched; giant, house-sized boulders still sitting on a pile of rubble that used to be a home.

[endurance]

good eye. But, I dont think there is any such eyes that look at the geology before houses are built ?

No, not in most cases.  Like I said, I'm not trying to lay blame on anyone, just a tragedy that might have been prevented had the right person at the right time in the right place said something. 

I remember driving up a valley where I lived one year and tracing an old avalanche path down the hillside to a home by the river.  All the trees along that path were about 50 years old while the remainder of the forest were trees that were at least 100 years old or older.  It was so obvious to me that whoever built and bought that house had no clue about the hazards they faced, but to this day (20 years now since I first saw it), there hasn't been a single avalanche in that little gully.  Sure, there might never be another avalanche there again, but I sure wouldn't bet my life on it.  One day I worked up the nerve to talk to the home owners and expressed my concern.  Their response was, "huh, interesting."  I didn't push it.  It wasn't my place and obviously he had too much invested to take the threat seriously.

I might be the same way on some other issue that I'm blind to.  We all have our blind spots.  Heck, I live with the belief that I've mitigated my home enough that it would probably survive a wildfire.  I hope to never learn if I'm right or wrong.

[Cedar]

Search and rescue crews have located an additional six bodies. 14 dead and 101 unaccounted for after mudslide.

Cedar

[Cedar]

President Obama signs Washington State emergency declaration, ordering federal aid after deadly mudslide. Via NBC

Cedar

[mountainmoma]

There are alot of people here in the Santa Cruz mountains that live in houses in much more obvious mud slide danger. Where the houses are built right on the sometimes unstable hillsides. I dont get it, it is a fairly obvious risk, we have lost homes and lives to these - in comparison - littler mud slides in years past.

This big one up there in Washington, though, I think wasnt so obvious to most of us people who cant read geology too well. To think of such a HUGE piece of the mountain, all the way across the river like that going, and getting you home...... Like you said, obvious if the right person were to see it, but I would have never thought it could happen if I was them. So sad.

[Cedar]

Where the houses are built right on the sometimes unstable hillsides. I dont get it, it is a fairly obvious risk, we have lost homes and lives to these -

One time when I was in California, I saw huge amount of damage that the San Andreas Fault did to houses and I saw a 5 foot drop and upheave from it. The ruins of the buildings were right there. It is a pretty famous earthquake prone fault I think..and 5 miles down the road ... was new construction for apartments and houses. 

And on the Oregon coast.. right out on the sandbar, they build multi- million dollar homes.

Even around here, hillsides/mountains which are not generally unstable, they clearcut the top of them and the people below get the brunt of it.

Cedar

[endurance]

Well, it didn't take too much research to see that the scarp only formed in 2006 in a previous smaller mudslide.  The area has a well documented history of mudslides.  Another case where surviving sometimes comes down to doing due diligence when researching where you're buying and what the local hazards are.

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2023211509_mudslidehistoryxml.html

The slide eight years ago dispatched a wall of mud down the same hill that buckled this weekend. “This is the very same mass of rock and dirt,” said Tim Walsh, geologic hazards chief for the state Department of Natural Resources. “It just moved again.”

“Landslides often occur in the same place over and over.”

[Cedar]

Washington State Mudslide toll update
- 6 bodies recovered today
- 14 dead
- 176 unaccounted for

Cedar

[FreeLancer]

This really struck me:

Ed Hrivnak, who was co-piloting an aircraft that was first to arrive at the scene, said a lot of the houses weren’t buried. When they got hit, “the houses exploded.” He said cars were crushed into little pieces, their tires the only signs that they had been vehicles.

He said he saw people so thoroughly covered in mud that searchers could only spot them by the whites of their waving palms. His helicopter rescued eight people, including a 4-year-old boy, who was up to his knees in concretelike compressed mud.

The mud was so sticky, the rescuers were worried about getting stuck so the helicopter hovered about a foot away and the crew chief tried to pull him out. “He was suctioned in that mud so much that his pants came off,” Hrivnak said.

[NWPilgrim]

As sharp as the hillside is now where it slid off you got to figure there will be LOT more mud, rocks and trees coming down that slope for years.  Very dangerous area.

My grandparents use to own property up the valley of the East fork of the Wood River near Hailey/Sun Valley, ID.  A gravel road traverses the north hillside and looks down across the valley floor. My mom pointed the avalanche chutes all along the south hillside (facing north) and how every few years the would roar across the valley all the way up to the road.  Back then there were but a few houses, and the old Triumph Mine all on the north hillside, for a reason!

Nowadays when you look across that same valley floor there are $3-$5 million homes clustered all up through the valley.  I am amazed there has not been one avalanche through there in 30 years.  Mostly smaller ones that stay on the south side of the river.  But one of these days we will hear of the tragedy of wealthy folks wiped out in a Sun Valley area avalanche.

[Cedar]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-26726746



Family members and volunteers were using chainsaws and their bare hands to shift the wreckage and try to find those missing. Cory Kuntz, helped by others, worked with chainsaws to cut through the roof of his uncle's house, which was swept about 450ft (137m) from its location. He said his aunt, Linda McPherson, had been killed. He and the others pulled files and personal effects from the house.






Across the highway

Cedar

[Cedar]

Additional bodies have been found at scene of WA mudslide; number not yet disclosed.

Cedar

[Cedar]

At least 8 additional bodies seen at scene of WA mudslide but not yet recovered, putting presumed death toll at 24

Cedar

[Cedar]

Some of 90 missing in mudslide may not be found
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Grim-reality-Some-slide-victims-may-not-be-found-252505831.html

Cedar

[NWBowhunter]

How 1 survivor did lived http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Landslide-survivor-I-just-kept-digging-and-digging-and-digging-252560411.html