3 dead in mudslide in Washington

[novasteve]

3 die in mudslide east of Arlington, 6 homes destroyed | Local News | The Seattle Times

Some voluntary evacuations have taken place.

 

[eflatminor]

I'm going with global warming or...Bush's fault.

 

[J.E.D]

It's a Novasteve thread, so, I'm going with something about trannies

 

[Toro]

RIP to the three transvestites.

 

[waltky]

Rescuers diggin' with their bare hands...

Mudslide searchers press on with dogs, bare hands
Mar 26,`14 -- With search and cadaver dogs leading the way, rescuers using small bulldozers and their bare hands pushed through sludge strewn with splintered homes and twisted cars to find 10 more bodies in the debris of a Washington state mudslide, authorities said.

Despite the grim discoveries as the search entered its fifth day Wednesday - and the likelihood that more bodies will be found - officials were still hoping to find survivors. "We haven't lost hope that there's a possibility that we can find somebody alive in some pocket area," said Snohomish County District 21 Fire Chief Travis Hots. Two bodies were recovered Tuesday, while another eight were located in the debris field from Saturday's slide 55 miles northeast of Seattle, Hots said. That brings the likely death toll to 24, though authorities are keeping the official toll at 16 until the eight other bodies are recovered.

With scores still missing, authorities are working off a list of 176 people unaccounted for, though some names were believed to be duplicates. Authorities said that number will change because more people have called in since the nearby logging town of Darrington's power was restored Tuesday. Hundreds of rescuers and heavy equipment operators slogged through the muck and rain, following the search dogs over the unstable surface. "Going on the last three days the most effective tool has been dogs and just our bare hands and shovels uncovering people," Hots said. "But the dogs are the ones that are pinpointing a particular area to look, and we're looking and that's how we're finding people."

A volunteer was injured Tuesday when he was struck by debris blown by a helicopter's rotor. The man was transported to a hospital for evaluation, but the injuries appeared minor, Snohomish County sheriff's spokeswoman Shari Ireton said in a statement. As the increasingly desperate search progressed, reports surfaced that warned of the potential for dangerous landslides in the community. A 2010 report commissioned by Snohomish County to comply with a federal law warned that neighborhoods along the Stillaguamish River were among the highest-risk areas, The Seattle Times reported.

The hillside that collapsed Saturday outside of the community of Oso was one highlighted as particularly dangerous, said the report by California-based engineering and architecture firm Tetra Tech. "For someone to say that this plan did not warn that this was a risk is a falsity," said report author and Tetra Tech program manager Rob Flaner. A 1999 report by geomorphologist Daniel Miller raised questions about why residents were allowed to build homes in the area and whether officials had taken proper precautions. "I knew it would fail catastrophically in a large-magnitude event," though not when it would happen, said Miller, who was hired by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to do the study. "I was not surprised." A year later, the U.S. Army Corps of engineers warned in another study that lives would be at risk if the hillside collapsed, The Daily Herald of Everett reported.

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See also:

Body of Navy commander, victim of mudslide, found by brothers
March 26, 2014 ~ The body of Cmdr. L. John Regelbrugge III, 49, 32-year Navy veteran, and his dog were found by his brothers, said his sister-in-law, Jackie Leighton. At least 16 are confirmed dead so far from the mudslide.

Searchers on Tuesday added to the grim toll from Saturday’s mudslide near Oso, Wash., finding additional bodies in the muck and debris that once was a community. Officials confirmed they had recovered 16 bodies since the slide and think there were as many as eight more that had been found but remained in the debris. The announcement came in the evening, after rescue teams had expanded their search for survivors or bodies amid worsening weather conditions in a massive mudslide above the North Fork of the Stillaguamish River in Snohomish County.

Among those recovered was the body of U.S. Navy Cmdr. L. John Regelbrugge III, 49, who was found Tuesday morning on his property on Steelhead Drive, said his sister-in-law, Jackie Leighton of Vacaville, Calif. Regelbrugge was a 32-year Navy veteran, she said. “John was found this morning about 10 a.m. with his dog. His brothers found his body,” Leighton said. Regelbrugge’s wife, Kris, remains missing, Leighton said: “They were both home when the slide hit, but they haven’t found her yet.” Two of John Regelbrugge’s brothers and two of his sons “were all part of the search,” while his third son is overseas and now trying to make his way home, said Leighton.

Washington State Department of Transportation safety manager Mike Breysse examines areas devastated by a deadly mudslide on March 24, 2014, near Oso, Wash.

Meanwhile, the Kitsap (Wash.) Sun reports that Chief Petty Officer William Spiller, a Navy career counselor assigned to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility detachment in Everett, Wash., is listed as unaccounted for, along with three of his children. In a morning news conference Tuesday morning, John Pennington, Snohomish County's emergency management director, said that teams from the Washington Army National Guard and Federal Emergency Management Agency had arrived to help with the ground and air rescue.

By midmorning, hundreds had joined in a “highly visible” search with dogs and a variety of technologies such as sonar. Officials Monday night were working on a list of 176 reports of missing people, although Pennington stressed that many could be duplicates. By Tuesday evening, Pennington said that number rose and fell so much throughout the day that he couldn’t provide an accurate number.

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[CaféAuLait]

Very sad, still at least 100 plus missing, although the number is 176 they said on the news today some are duplicates, BUT power was just restored to one town and officials believe there will be reports of more dead and missing in that town.

 

[waltky]

Scores still missing in Washington mudslide...

176 Still Missing in US Mudslide
March 25, 2014 ~ Rescue workers sifted through mucky rubble on Tuesday amid dwindling hopes of finding any more survivors from among scores of people still missing from a devastating weekend mudslide in Washington state that killed at least 14.

About a dozen workers kept up the search for as many as 176 people who have been reported missing since a rain-soaked hillside collapsed in the morning hours of March 22, swallowing dozens of homes near Oso, Washington. Work crews began clearing debris along the southern portion of the mudslide area.

Washington State Police chaplains watch as workers dig through debris left following a mudslide, near Oso, Washington, March 25, 2014.

Compounding their sense of urgency was a fear of flooding as water levels rose behind a crude dam of mud and rubble that had been dumped into the North Fork of the Stillaguamish River by the slide in an area about 90 kilometers northeast of Seattle.

Authorities were hoping the number of people listed as missing would decline as they had perhaps been double-counted or had been slow to alert family and officials about their whereabouts. More than 100 properties were hit by the mudslide.

176 Still Missing in US Mudslide

See also:

Death Toll Nearing Two Dozen in US Landslide
March 26, 2014 ~ Sixteen people are now confirmed dead from last week's landslide in Washington state that destroyed dozens of homes in a rural community.

The death toll was revised after rescue workers recovered two more bodies in the town of Oso, located just north of Seattle. Officials said they believe they have located eight more bodies in the rubble, while another 176 people continue to be listed as missing.

The massive mudslide that killed at least eight people Saturday and left dozens missing is shown in this aerial photo, March 24, 2014, near Arlington, Washington.

Rescue crews are using heavy equipment, high tech cameras, search dogs and their bare hands to search and dig through the rubble in the search for possible survivors and victims. Last Saturday's disaster occurred when hillside collapsed after several weeks of heavy rains.

On Tuesday, the Seattle Times newspaper published a report written by a geologist with U.S. Corps of Engineers in 1999 that warned of the potential of "catastrophic failure" in the area affected by Saturday's landslide.

http://www.voanews.com/content/deat...en-in-us-pacific-state-landslide/1879363.html

 

[NoNukes]

I'm going with global warming or...Bush's fault.

Not Obama's fault??? Amazing.

 

[Manchester]

Nobody blamed Muslim terrorism yet?

 

[longknife]

what'd I tell you! It was all the fault of the people living there for building in a dangerous area and ignoring the warning signs. Story @ Experts say red flags evident before deadly Wash. mudslide | Al Jazeera America