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 eight more 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, although not about
housing, raises 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.
Residents and county officials were focused on flood prevention, even after a 2006 landslide that did not reach any homes.
"We were just trying to stabilize the river so we could save the
community from additional flooding," said Steve Thomsen, the county's
public works director.
