ARLINGTON, Washington (AP) — 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. Video of boys rescue in first hours after Washington mudslide is released Video of boys rescue in first hours after Washington mudslide is released 4 hr ago 0:47 Views: 78k Reuters It haunts me, a sometimes emotional Pennington said at news conference. I think we did what we could do. Sometimes large slides happen. Photo gallery: Deadly landslide in Washington 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. Catastrophic mudslides just happen says Washington state emergency official Catastrophic mudslides just happen says Washington state emergency official 2 hr ago 1:20 Views: 345 Reuters Two additional bodies were recovered Tuesday, while eight more were located in the debris field from Saturdays 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 havent lost hope that theres a possibility that we can find somebody alive in some pocket area, said Travis Hots, a county fire chief. 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 Tuesdays 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. A year later, the Army Corps warned in another study that lives would be at risk if the hillside collapsed, The Daily Herald of Everett reported. ___ Le reported from Seattle. Associated Press writers Jason Dearen in San Francisco; Lisa Baumann in Seattle; P. Solomon Banda in Darrington; and photographer Elaine Thompson in Oso contributed to this report. Researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed from New York.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 20:28:07 +0000
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