WHY THEY STAY
In the town of Darrington, near the site of Saturday’s disaster, folks have always known about the dangers of landslides and flooding. And yet this is where they choose to live. Here’s why some have stayed:
— Some praise the scenery and the sense of community. “It’s just beautiful. You wake up in the morning and you can hear the eagles,” said Jason Henry. His wife, Vanessa, added: “It’s like a big family here. A lot of outsiders don’t understand that.”
— Most people either make their living off the land or commute for work and then return to Darrington to enjoy the peace and quiet. “We came here for the logging and the mining, but we stayed for the connection,” teacher Laura Grimmer said.
— And no one seems to have any thoughts of leaving. “It can be dangerous out here, the rivers and flooding, the mountains and landslides, but we love it, and I wouldn’t leave. … We all know the risks,” Red Top Tavern bartender Debbie Meredith said.
Associated Press
Weary rescuers in hip waders pressed through rain and their own exhaustion Thursday, searching for more bodies and a perhaps a miracle atop the pile of filth and debris that laid waste to a Washington town and killed at least 25 people.
Rescue and cadaver dogs occasionally led crews to a wrecked car or the ruins of a house containing a body. Teams then began removing the corpse, ignoring the muck that clogged their tools. As the victim was taken away, silence fell over the site.
The main goal now is to find more bodies and winnow the list of the 90 people who are missing in the mudslide that buried the community of Oso on Saturday.
At this point, narrowing that list means only one thing: digging. There are no more phone calls to relatives, no more door-to-door searches in hopes of locating people who just haven’t checked in yet.
“At this time, we’re not using any other type of methods other than the search and rescue,” said Casey Broom of the Snohomish County emergency operations center.
The more than 200 people working on the sludgy heap cling to hope that at least one survivor is waiting for them in some pocket of the pile, which is a square mile wide and 40 feet deep in places.
“My heart is telling me I’m not giving up yet,” Snohomish County District 21 Fire Chief Travis Hots said. “If we find just one more person alive, it’s all worth it to me.”
After six days of searching, people are not the only ones showing signs of strain. Shane Barco’s 3-year-old German shepherd has found bodies and body parts. But, Barco said, the dog gets frustrated when they don’t bring anybody out alive.
Authorities warned the community to expect a substantial rise in the death toll within the next two days as the medical examiner’s office catches up with the recovery effort.
Sixteen bodies have been recovered, but officials say at least nine more had been found as of Wednesday night. The medical examiner’s office has so far formally identified only a single victim, 45-year-old Christina Jefferds.
Family members have confirmed a handful of other fatalities to news organizations.
The body of Jefferds’ granddaughter, 4-month-old Sanoah Huestis, was found Thursday, said Dale Petersen, the girl’s great-uncle.
Petersen said when he arrived on the scene to help look for survivors, he found that work had stopped. A firefighter informed him and others that the infant had been found, Petersen said.
He said the news provides closure for the family.
“We spent a lot of time together,” he said of the baby girl.
Five people injured by the mudslide remain in a Seattle hospital, including a 5-month-old boy in critical condition.
Besides the 90 missing, authorities are checking into 35 other people who may or may not have been in the area at the time of the slide.
If dozens more bodies are found or left entombed in the debris, the Oso mudslide could become one of Washington state’s largest disasters. The 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens killed 57 people, and a 1910 avalanche near Stevens Pass that struck two trains killed 96.
“We do know this could end up being the largest mass loss of Washingtonians,” Gov. Jay Inslee said Thursday. “We’re looking for miracles to occur.”
A University of Washington researcher now says there were two major slides Saturday morning.
The bigger slide that hit Oso lasted more than 2 minutes, and was followed four minutes later by the second one, wrote Kate Allstadt on the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network blog.
Seismic signals also recorded more than a dozen smaller slides that continued for more than an hour.
“The big pulse was the main volume of material that broke down from the slope and tumbled down toward that valley,” said Bill Steele, the seismology lab coordinator and spokesman for the seismic network. “Another big pulse followed that, breaking loose another section of unstable slope.”
The seismic signals showed that the slide was not triggered by an earthquake, Allstadt said.
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