Nasty landslide in western WA

[ledhedsymbols]

It's somewhat rural area, but eight dead and 16 missing still... Thoughts and prayers are with the families of the deceased and those still evacuated from the area and downstream.


Landslide death toll rises to 8 as search for missing continues | Local & Regional | Seattle News, Weather, Sports, Breaking News | KOMO News

[GWN7]

News reports said rescuer's could hear people calling from the debris field but they sunk into the mud trying to help.

[LakeCleElum]

List of those missing now at 108........Sad, ridden my m/c thru there on Hwy 530 many times.......

[RWebb]

They had some geologists do a fly-over and they declared it now safe for S&R teams, but... it is likely and tragically too late now.

This area has a history, so I have to wonder if the people who built there knew about the risk, or had any way to know...

[J P Stein]

The thing stopping the rescurers was the quicksand like mud....up to 80 feet deep.
Let the geologists walk in there & lead the way.

[ckissick]

Originally Posted by RWebb

This area has a history, so I have to wonder if the people who built there knew about the risk, or had any way to know...

I wonder that, too. My master's thesis in engineering geology was on debris flows, which is what this was. It is fairly easy to anticipate your standard debris flow. In fact, I looked on google earth at the area where this happened, and the hillsides are riddled with narrow debris flow scars. But this massive failure was entirely different. Probably not so easy, and maybe even impossible, to predict.

[Bill Douglas]

Very sad.

In NZ we had major mud and floods hit a small town a few years ago. What had happened was the hills behind the town had been a pine forest then the loggers cut down the trees and took them away. Without the trees and bushy undergrowth the water raced down the hills collecting mud and debris, then hit the town like a flash flood.

[ledhedsymbols]

14 confirmed dead, 108 reports of people missing. Probably some duplicate folks in the 108.... Still devastating. The community out there is very small.

[RWebb]

UW geologist said the area had a previous slide history and the part that slid may have been rel. unconsolidated debris from former slides

he also noted the unusually heavy rains in March as a trigger possibility

[LWJ]

We have very close friends/family in Darrington. A tragedy. Some of the school kids they know are missing. I am sort of speechless.

[porwolf]

Originally Posted by RWebb

UW geologist said the area had a previous slide history and the part that slid may have been rel. unconsolidated debris from former slides

he also noted the unusually heavy rains in March as a trigger possibility

I saw aerial pictures of the slide area before and after the tragedy. The before picture looked like there was a similar big slide right at the same spot.

[ledhedsymbols]

Missing persons count is up to 176 according to a recent report on KOMO news radio a few minutes ago. Just terrible....

One of the guys in my vanpool has been MIA for a couple days. I hope he wasn't up there. It's pretty close to where I live.

[Ferraripete]

tragic. my heart goes out to those that have lost.

[Ayles]

My cousin lost two homes and his 80+ year old MIL is still missing. They lost everything and he has been in the hospital with a shattered wrist and other injuries. Pretty crazy how big this thing was...

As of Sunday they didn't even have any clothes as the hospital cut off what they were wearing.

[Tishabet]

A real tragedy, godspeed to all of those who lost their lives.

[ckissick]

Turns out, it was predicted by the US Corps of Engineers in 1999.

The Steelhead landslide in Oso, Washington State - The Landslide Blog - AGU Blogosphere

[GH85Carrera]

Wow, 15 years of warning and all those deaths. Sad.

[ckissick]

Many geologists had been warning of a catastrophic landslide, but the local permitting agency didn't even seem to be aware of the danger. One agency bureaucrat said there was absolutely no indication of any potential danger. Wow. Most of the destroyed houses were relatively new, many having been built after a large slide in 2006.

[LakeCleElum]

[porwolf]

Originally Posted by ckissick

Many geologists had been warning of a catastrophic landslide, but the local permitting agency didn't even seem to be aware of the danger. One agency bureaucrat said there was absolutely no indication of any potential danger. Wow. Most of the destroyed houses were relatively new, many having been built after a large slide in 2006.

Local govenment permit agencies are usually under heavy pressure by the real eastate industry to close their eyes to reasonable known dangers that affect property values. Here in Los Angeles the City Planning Deaprtment will not prevent development on top of known eartquake faults. Their reasoning is that those earthquake faults are not listed on the official California State Earthquake Map yet. When that "official" map gets published nobody knows. I am sure the real estate lobby wants that map to come out as late as possible or possibly never.