MUD SLIDE !!! I Wonder If Mark Hesby Is OK ...???

[HUGGY]

Mark is my first girlfriend's little brother...well he WAS little when the sneaky fuck brought his dad over to my grandparent's house(they were out of town for a couple of weeks) on Arrowhead point to break up a party his sister and I and another couple were having one Friday night when we were suposed to be at football game. I lived with them most of my Jr and Sn high school years.

Pauline(my gal) was grounded for 6 months and not allowed to ever see me again. I was PISSED beyond words at the stupid fuck for back stabbing me and his sister like that.

Well now I have mixed feelings about Mark. He had grown up big and strong and Pauline and I even visited his farm and saw mill on the Stiiiguamish river about 15 years ago. Pauline and I had after a very long seperation from our high school love found each other again.

Mark and his family live right under the path of the mud slide you all have seen on the news. From what I can see from the high altitude photos his aproximately 100 acre farm and mill is no more.

I feel for Mark and hope he and his family are safe. Fifty years ago I would have felt it was God's will. I hated him more than anyone I knew at that time.

Good luck Mark...I hope you survived.

 

[depotoo]

Have you heard anything?
14 confirmed dead now, and 176 are still missing.

 

[depotoo]

14 People Dead, 176 Reports of Missing After Washington Mudslide - NBC News

 

[Old Rocks]

No survivors found since Saturday. This is a major tragedy for the community. The slide was not only predictable, but was predicted in a report in 1999. But it was ignored.

So how do we prevent such tragedies in the future? First, identify the slides, and the potential size and speed of the slides. Geologists have many ways of doing this, including LIDAR. Second, notify the people in harms way of the nature of the worst case slide to be expected, and what the kind of conditions would likely lead to the slide. Third, set up a monitoring and warning system. This kind of slide does not happen without warning. There are prelimnary ground movements that could easily be caught with GPS systems. And, fourth, warn everyone that would be affected, and the surrounding neighborhood, when the warning systems show movement.

There are many homes and farms on, and in path of, existing land slides. We simply cannot just abandon those homes and farms, particulary when some of the slides may not move in this century. However, we can monitor them, and prevent such a tragic loss of life.

 

[depotoo]

I heard there is more rain headed that way. If so it will just hamper the efforts of recovery that much longer. Prayers and thoughts to all there.

 

[waltky]

Mudslide haunts emergency director...

Official on deadly mudslide: 'It haunts me'
26 Mar.`14 — Search and cadaver dogs and rescuers using small bulldozers and their bare hands on Wednesday looked for victims and survivors of a deadly mudslide as local officials said they did everything they could to keep the rural community safe in the years before the catastrophe.

Snohomish County Emergency Management Director John Pennington said that following a 2006 landslide in the area, authorities took steps to mitigate risks and tell local residents about potential hazards. But he said the sheer size of this slide — which destroyed a neighborhood, likely killing at least 24 and leaving dozens missing — was overwhelming. "It haunts me," a sometimes emotional Pennington said at news conference. "I think we did what we could do. Sometimes large slides happen." Pennington said the landslide risk has been high this winter, and the Department of Natural Resources put out warnings on a routine basis. He added officials will try to learn from this tragedy.

Authorities also told reporters they expect to soon have an updated number of people believed missing. They are working off a list of 176 unaccounted for, though some names were thought to be duplicates and the number should decrease. Pennington said officials would have a revised figure later Wednesday. Two additional bodies were recovered Tuesday, while eight more were located in the debris field from Saturday's slide 55 miles northeast of Seattle. That brings the likely death toll to 24, though authorities are keeping the official toll at 16 until the eight other bodies are recovered. "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.

Authorities said they are doing everything they can to keep responders safe as the increasingly desperate search progresses in mud and debris amid the threat of flash flooding. Searchers "got beat up" in Tuesday's rainy weather, operations section chief Steve Westlake noted. 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, according to 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, although not about housing, raised questions about why residents were allowed to build homes in the area and whether officials took 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.

More http://news.yahoo.com/official-deadly-mudslide-haunts-174945648.html

See also:

Number of Missing or Unaccounted For in Mudslide Drops to 90
The number of people missing or unaccounted for after the massive landslide in Washington state has dropped from 176 to 90, search officials said Wednesday night.

Ever since the avalanche of dirt and debris buried the small community 55 miles east of Seattle in mud on Saturday, the number of people who weren't accounted for had fluctuated as high as 250. The new number was determined after authorities cross-referenced reports of missing persons and a registry of people who'd reported they were alive and well, John Pennington, director of the Snohomish County Emergency Management Department, told reporters. Thirty-five more people were listed as "status unknown," a catchall designation for people — such as relatives, acquaintances or other visitors — who may or may not have been in the area at the time of the landslide but haven't checked in as safe.

Authorities confirmed Tuesday that 16 bodies had been recovered from the muck and that eight other people were believed to have been found. No further bodies were found Wednesday, Pennington said. Crews were still holding out hope that some survivors might be hidden in air pockets under the mud, called "voids," Steve Westlake, an operations section chief for the search effort, told NBC News. "We have found those voids," Westlake said, but searchers haven't uncovered any survivors yet. Arlington Mayor Beth Tolbert said donations had poured in from as far away as New Zealand, but she said "this is a lot of people to be missing" and pleaded for more donations to help the area rebuild.

As scores of emergency officials and volunteers scoured the soft, unstable ground, rescue dogs were starting to get "very fatigued very early," Pennington said, and coordinators were working on a plan to keep them rested and effective. So many volunteers showed up to help at the staging site in the town of Darrington that "we don't need any more workers" there, he said. "We can't safely manage them." Authorities said debris removal from Highway 530 remained a priority, but they said it would be a long and difficult challenge because of the presence of possible victims.

Number of Missing or Unaccounted For in Mudslide Drops to 90 - NBC News

 

[HUGGY]

OK...here is what the yokuls of little Darrington Washington SHOULD have done.

I keep hearing about how the volunteers that were turned away should have just followed the orders of the local response team and just go away and let the "experts" deal with it.

Nonsense !! There are no local "experts" on square mile land/mudslides into a small community across a river and into another small community burrying over a hundred people.

The closest thing we have in WA state might be avalanche recovery people.

What these UNEXPERIENCED "leaders" should have done is IMMEDIATELY get on the phone or internet and sought out the WORLDS best mudslide/avalanche experts and flown that individual on to the site to run things.

This is a WORLD CLASS DISASTER of this type and needed world class expertise before these overwhelmed locals did ANYTHING as far as trying to run the response.

I feel bad for the huge flaming bag of dog shit that was laid at the doors of the "leaders" of Darrington Washington...I really do. But it is easy to over rate ones own ability in a small town and I would feel much more comfort for my friends in this crazy bad mudslide if the responsibility and leadership was truly the best that the world could offer.

 

[HUGGY]

My apology to Mr. Hots. He is not the local Police Chief. He is the local Fire Chief. He has finally reached out nationally to the REAL experts in slide disaster. He claims that many of the best in the field across the country will be arriving shortly as his first responders are getting weary and need to be replaced.

Too little...too late.

How many died unneccesarily?

We will never know.

So far 26 known dead with another 90 still un accounted for and presumed dead.

This is by far the biggest natural disaster ever in the state of Washington.

I realize that the locals "did the best they could". Would have some lives been saved if REAL experts had been recruited immediately? We will never know if the hubris of a local fire chief in a small town led to mistakes in the attempted rescue of some of the victims.

 

[B. Kidd]

Why didn't the geologic report done in 1999 get inattention by local government?

 

[HUGGY]

Why didn't the geologic report done in 1999 get inattention by local government?

It was prepared for the Fisheries Department of Washington State as part of a study to isolate potential hazzards for the survival of local fish runs up our various and many rivers and streams. There have been many small mud/land slides of that hill over the years. Most people in any relevant agency had not seen the report.

There was probably some pressure and urgency to push land developement in that area as typically flooding would be the normal concern and that area was slightly higher from any flood danger than lot of the land near the river.

Small towns like more residents in new land developement because it raises the tax base.

Things change when there is a little more money..Arlington has a full time paid fire department whereas Darrington fire dept is 100% voluntary.

I don't think any official had THAT report on his desk and attempted to hide the facts.