| The Seattle Times | - |
Officials
said they have received 176 reports of people missing as rescuers
continue to search the debris from a mile-wide mudslide in Snohomish
County.
14 dead; 176 reports of people missing in mile-wide mudslide
Officials said they have received 176 reports
of people missing as rescuers continue to search the debris from a
mile-wide mudslide in Snohomish County.
Seattle Times staff
Ted S. Warren / AP
This aerial photograph shows the devastation
Monday afternoon near Oso, Snohomish County. In this view looking west, a
portion of Highway 530 runs along the Stillaguamish River – until the
highway disappears into the debris field. The pile of mud and debris at
center, 20 feet deep or more in some areas, blankets Steelhead Lane and
surrounding homes. On the other side of the river, which is starting to
cut a new channel through the mud, towers the cliff that was left
behind, 1,500 feet wide and 600 feet tall.
How to help
Report someone missingCall the Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management at 425-388-5088.
Donate to victims
The Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management is matching resources and assistance offered with community needs. Call 425-388-5088.
Financial donations can be made at the Red Cross website or by calling 1-800-REDCROSS.
THE SLIDE
WITNESS ACCOUNTS
THE SEARCH
THE AFTERMATH
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This evening, he said there were still 176 reports of missing and unaccounted-for individuals as a result of the disaster. Earlier in the day, that number was 108.
John Pennington, who heads the county’s Department of Emergency Management, said earlier some reports of the missing are vague and insists the number of victims will not be nearly that large.
Snohomish County Fire District 21 Chief Travis Hots said “the situation is very grim.”
“We are still holding out hope we are going to find people alive. We are still in a rescue mode,” Hots added.
Dave Norman, state geologist with Department of Natural Resources, said this afternoon that the mudslide is still moving, and there’s no way to tell when it will be stable enough for rescue workers to resume looking for victims throughout the slide area.
“That is something we’re trying to get a better handle on,” Norman said at a news conference. “If we can see that there’s less movement, we will have a better feel for whether it’s safe for rescue workers to go back out.”
The mudslide area is nearly a mile square, Norman said. The cliff it left behind in the mountain is 600 feet tall and 1,500 feet long.
“This is one of the biggest landslides I’ve seen,” he said.
The river has started to flow across the top of and around the debris field, which Norman said is a good thing.
Working with him and other DNR officials are geologists from the state Department of Transportation, the U.S. Geological Survey and Snohomish County.
Rescuers today are using aircraft, and Pennington said this morning that four search-dog teams and technical teams with equipment to probe the ground would join the search today. But it wasn’t clear if that had yet happened, or if they were all kept away or on the edges of the slide because of fear for their safety. Rescue workers were seen on the west side of the slide this afternoon.
Searchers going through debris have been sinking in the mud, which is 20 feet or more deep in some areas.
Lisa Bishop of Kent was walking around Arlington with her dog, Cody, a rescue dog with Northwest Disaster Search Dogs, trained to find survivors in disasters. But they were in town because officials were preventing them from going up because it’s too dangerous. “It’s frustrating,” Bishop said.
President Obama signed an emergency declaration today, allowing FEMA and other agencies to coordinate relief efforts as needed.
Missing families
Jose Mangual, a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army, said his 13-year-old son, Jovon Mangual, is among those missing.
Also missing, he said, are three other members of Jovon’s family: Jovon’s stepfather, Billy Spillers, and Jovon’s half-sisters Kaylee Spillers, 5, and Brooke Spillers, 2.
The children’s mother, Jonielle Spillers, a nursing assistant, and Jovon’s 4-year-old half-brother, Jacob Spillers, are alive, Mangual said.
Mangual said Jonielle Spillers was working when she found out about the mudslide. Blocked from reaching home because of the slide, she called hospitals, which is how she found Jacob.
The Spillers moved from Seattle to Oso about two years ago, Mangual said.
Billy Spillers, a chief petty officer in the Navy, is stationed at the naval base in Everett and the family liked the nearby property in Oso “because it was more country-like and they liked the house,” Mangual said.
Billy Spillers and the children were apparently at home watching TV when the mudslide happened, according to Mangual who said he spoke with Jacob about what happened. Jacob said he was on the second floor of the house.
“Jacob told me he got out when nobody else was able to get out,” Mangual said.
Mangual’s son, Jovon, is “really into sports – football,” his father said. “He’s a real happy boy. Always joking around. He has a lot of friends.”
Billy Spillers is a “really loving step-dad,” Mangual said. “He’s always there for them, even with my son. Really paying attention to the details, going to JoJo’s games, making him feel really part of the family.”
Kaylee and Brooke Spillers are “real girlish, real happy,” playing often with their dolls and enjoying drawing.
Mangual, who spoke by phone from Colorado Springs where he is stationed at Fort Carson, was planning to fly to Seattle this afternoon and head to Oso.
“I hope to find them all alive and be reunited with my family,” Mangual said.
Also among the missing is Thomas Durnell, 65.
Deb Durnell, his wife, was working Saturday morning and is safe, according to her daughter, Pam Keller.
But Tom Durnell, retired and at the couple’s home Saturday, is unaccounted for.
“It’s really devastating,” said Carrie Milburn, a friend of the Durnells.
Milburn said the couple loved their house, where they moved after getting married in 2010.
Milburn said she and her husband recently had a “great long” dinner with the Durnells. “They talked about how tickled they were” by the house and its view of the Stillaguamish River, Milburn said.
Nichole Webb Rivera said she frantically called and texted her parents, her daughter and her daughter’s fiance when the massive hillside collapsed Saturday morning.
Rivera says her parents, Thom and Marcy Satterlee, lived in the center of the slide, and she doesn’t think they made it out. She says her 20-year-old daughter, Delaney Webb, and Webb’s fiance were visiting the older couple at the time.
Rivera lives in Houston but traveled to Washington after the slide. She said today after visiting the area: “We’ve lost four.”
“A completely unforseen slide”
Sen. Maria Cantwell, speaking at the same Arlington news conference as Hots and Pennington, said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other federal agencies are ready to assist as well.
Going into detail about the slide site, near Oso, Pennington said there are 59 vacant lots in the slide area, and another 49 lots had some sort of structure — meaning a house, a cabin or some type of possible dwelling. Of all of the structures, 25 were likely occupied full-time.
Pennington was asked about reports that some youths had been at a slumber party in a home at the slide area. He said he hadn’t heard anything about that.
He also said he didn’t know about reports that there had been logging on the slope.
“The area was mitigated very heavily. It was considered very safe,” he said. “This was a completely unforeseen slide. This came out of nowhere.”
Pennington said that because the slide happened on a Saturday, more people likely were at home, not at work.
Pennington asked anyone with information about possible victims to call 425-388-5088.
The massive slide is now reported at 15 million cubic yards of mud and debris, said Steve Thompson, the county’s public works director. The mudslide came down from a hillside above the North Fork of the Stillaguamish River, crossed over it, plowed through homes and other structures and onto Highway 530 about 11 a.m. Saturday, flattening everything in its path.
He said the county isn’t moving any heavy equipment to the site at this point, not wanting to endanger the crews.
Marcus Deyering, spokesman for the Northwest Management Incident Team, said crews using heavy-duty lights spent the night searching the area “where it was safe to search.”
The names of the confirmed dead or the missing have not been released by officials, although some survivors or the families of the missing have talked to the media and provided names.
Officials at this morning’s news conference looked tired and weary as they spoke to reporters outside the Arlington Police Department.
“This is a large-scale disaster,” said Pennington.
A large section of the river, which was covered by the slide, is stabilizing, said Thompson, the county public works director.
“Mother Nature is doing a good job of re-carving that (river) channel,” he said, and downstream ”the river is getting back to “semi-normal levels.”
Seven houses upriver have flooded, a sheriff’s spokeswoman said this afternoon.
“Just like a bulldozer”
With no positive news forthcoming, relatives of the missing crowded into the Darrington Community Center Sunday looking for answers.
Relatives handed photos of missing loved ones to rescue workers in hopes they might turn up unconscious at a hospital.
Those reportedly missing ranged from Oso-area homeowners to repairmen on work assignments and a group of girls at a slumber party.
Ron Thompson, whose home was destroyed, stopped by the evacuation shelter at Post Middle School in Arlington to find out if his friends turned up alive. “We lost a lot of good kids. I don’t know what else to tell you. It hurts,” he said before driving away.
A 4-month-old baby and her grandmother were also among the missing.
The baby, Sanoah Huestis, lived with her grandparents, Christina and Seth Jefferds. Seth Jefferds, a volunteer firefighter, was not home at the time of the slide and arrived to find his house flattened and his wife and granddaughter missing, said his brother-in-law, Dale Petersen.
“He said it was just like a bulldozer ran over the house,’’ Petersen said.
Although the names of the people killed were not officially released, one is former Darrington librarian and School Board member Linda McPherson, 69, according to Pete Selvig, a member of the Darrington emergency-response team and a retired U.S. Forest Service employee.
McPherson’s husband, Gary “Mac” McPherson, was injured. His condition was not immediately known.
The couple’s house and that of their niece and nephew next door were both destroyed, Selvig said. The younger couple were not at home, but their dog was trapped in the debris, he said.
Rescuers tried to get to the dog after hearing whimpering Saturday night, but had to give up because the mud and debris were moving, Selvig said.
McPherson was branch manager of the Darrington library and served for about 15 years on the School Board, said Selvig, who served with her.
He said her approach to the business and challenges of the small rural school district was professional and methodical. She was part of a Darrington contingent that lobbied the state Legislature for funding to rebuild the district’s three aging schools. “Her name is on the plaque on the new elementary,” Selvig said.
Scramble to rescue baby
Seven people injured in the slide were being treated at area hospitals today.
At Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, 22-week-old Duke Suddarth is in critical condition and is improving. His mother, 25-year-old Amanda Skorjanc, is in satisfactory condition, the hosital said this afternoon.
Their family released this statement through the hospital: “We wish to express our heartfelt support to our neighbors and friends who are suffering as a result of the recent landslide. We send our prayers and hope to the entire community that has been affected by this tragedy.”
Three men, ages 81, 58 and 37, were all in serious condition this afternoon at Harborview, though their names were not released.
At Cascade Valley Hospital in Arlington, one woman was in satisfactory condition. Skagit Valley Hospital in Mount Vernon reported that a 68-year-old man was in stable condition.
Witnesses described a frantic scene when the slide hit Saturday morning.
Neighbors rushed to retrieve a mud-covered baby within moments, said an Arlington woman who was driving by when the catastrophe occurred.
“We thought it was a car accident,” said Sierra Sansaver, of Arlington, who said she was driving to Darrington to find the road was blocked by mud. “Then you realize there’s a house in the middle of the road.”
“We heard screaming from a house 100 yards from us. A whole bunch of men went in there and pulled out a 6-month-old baby,” Sansaver said. Firefighters also were arriving, she said.
“There was mud, household items everywhere, people screaming, crying, running into the rubbish.”
“Everybody was covered in mud. A lady next door who saw what happened, she was giving them blankets to hold the baby in. They got in a car, and left,” said Sansaver.
The infant at Harborview matched that scenario.
Rescuer’s home, family gone
In Darrington, a search-and-rescue team of about 20 people was advised Sunday morning to mark dead bodies if they saw any and keep looking for survivors.
Some workers emerged from the meeting bleary-eyed and dispirited.
One volunteer firefighter who had stopped working around 11:30 p.m. Saturday night said many tragic stories have yet to be told. He watched one rescuer find his own front door, but nothing else — not his home, his wife or his child.
They’re in the “missing” category along with many it is feared will eventually be listed as dead.
“It’s much worse than everyone’s been saying,” said the firefighter, who did not want to be named. “The slide is about a mile wide. Entire neighborhoods are just gone. When the slide hit the river, it was like a tsunami.”
Times staff reporters Alexa Vaughn, Janet Tu, Bob Young, Lynn Thompson, Jennifer Sullivan, Mike Carter, Christine Clarridge, Mike Baker, Mike Lindblom, Brian M. Rosenthal, Nancy Bartley, Jim Brunner and Christine Clarridge contributed to this report. Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.
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