Killer slide blocks north fork stilly

[bassplayer17]

All I can say is wow.. Thoughts and prayers go out to the people of oso....

[primetime]

This whole thing is nuts. I wonder what this does to coho smolts and wild steelhead head runs?! Thoughts go out to the deceased and hurt.... Very sad!

[Toni]

Now they can hear cries for help under the debris.

[drysuperfly52]

Its insane the slide happened less then a mile from my girlfriends family and farm. The river flow dropped to .25cfs 4 hours after... That is alot of backed up water.

[BARCHASER10]

What a disaster. 18 folks are missing! I fish CPost bridge on the upstream end of the slide all the time. The homes that were hit are all along Steelhead Drive. Very bad luck. That is one of the few places on the river that has a concentration of homes. I never would have dreamed that area would be exposed to anything like this.

[MarkFromSea]

Watching the news, it's pretty bad. Prayers out to the dead, injured and their families.

There was a small gravel pit near Oso that us Boy Scouts were taught to shoot in and later as young adults we would return to shoot and fire a cannon.

[primetime]

My wife and I were looking at buying a house off steelhead dr like 2 months ago.

[bassplayer17]

I want to give a shout out to a good friend and fellow Washington laker steelhead 360. Zack grew up in the oso area still knows a lot of people up there. He was going to go fishin with me today but has been up at the slide area helping out moving horses, cattle and people to higher ground. He told me its really bad up there.. Be safe buddy...

[Steelheadin360]

Thanks Tony, Sorry I missed out on that killer fishing today!

Finally home, I got about an hour and a half of sleep last night. I spent most of the night and today drive between Darrington and Arlington, the long way around through rockport. The area around Steelhead drive is totally gone. Looking at the slide in the daylight today it was hard to wrap my head around. The slide is about a 3/4 of a mile wide and goes across the whole valley. The river behind the slide is backing up about 10 inches an hour still and its literally a lake. I was about a 1/2 mile from the slide last night helping a friend get his horses out of there and the river was in his yard and he lives on some pretty high ground. he got word this morning that his house is now sitting in about 4 feet of water. I lost 4 very good friends yesterday and its hard to even fathom the other lives that have been lost. Being from a small town you get to know everyone, I spent a ton of time up there fishing. my favorite fishing hole is now under 30' of mud. As the river keeps coming up I also worry of the devistation its going to cause when it finally lets loose.

The river below the slide is a trickle. I seen two people down by the river today....Stay safe everyone and stay off the river!

[Steelheadin360]

Here is some pictures they just released...

https://www.flickr.com/photos/govinslee ... 811787053/

[Mike Carey]

wow, that is unreal the size of hill that came sliding down.

[Idstud]

Thoughts and prayers very sad.

[Bodofish]

An old neighbor from down the street. House gone and everything in it. Her mom went to the hospital but they really lucked out, it could have been much worse.

[BARCHASER10]

I got this off of another website. Volunteer first responder tells his story.


OSO MUD SLIDE I was the first responder on scene of the Oso mud slide disaster. This is my story, my shock, my disbelief, my heartbroken sorrow. A normal Saturday morning drinking coffee and planing the rest of my day. My pager goes off... I read it and it says flooding with barn in middle of the road. ???? I report to the station being the first one there I notify Snopac that station 37 is on the air. I debate to my self to take the rescue rig or the Engine. I opt for the engine cause my pager says flooding and I think ladders may come in handy. Then Steve comes through the door and I explain to him my choice and tell him to get in! I don't put on my bunker gear cause my pager says flooding and bunker gear is not good around water. I notify Snopac that engine 37 is in route with 2. I put the engine in gear , pull out of the station and on to highway 530 headed east towards Darrington. I drive approximately 4 miles reach Skaglin hill and start heading down the hill on the other side and to my disbelief I see a house in the middle of the road surrounded by broken trees ,mud, water and other floating debree . I can't believe my eyes. I notify Snopac that I am on scene but forget to give them a short report cause I can't believe my own eyes and what I am seeing! I practice , I drill and practice some more but I can't get reality to set in on this call. I get out of the Engine and don't even know we're to begin on this call. My chief says get your bunker gear on! I put my bunker gear on, get on the radio and start asking Snopac for additional resources, helicopter being the first thing that comes to mind, this is a disaster bring it all!!! I walk down highway 530 away from my engine about a hundred feet to the edge of the mud and debree. Steve and my chief then approach the edge of the devistation , we all look at each other in disbelief and say let's go. We know what we gotta do, help people! We start out in to the water , mud and debree and get about 30 feet out and realize we half to stay on top of the floating debree that doesn't want to float with are weight on it. It gets real slow moving really quick for us. We decide to withdraw and I tell the chief I'm going for the chain saw. I walk back off the debree to my engine and grab the saw thinking it may be my best tool in my arsenal for these conditions . I leave my engine headed back to the edge of the debree. I reach the edge looking for the best path through this horrible tragedy . Looking for a path I think I hear something so I tell my partners(firefighters) to be quite I think I hear something, we all are silent, then I hear it again , I know that sound it's a baby crying . I look at my chief and say I am going! I start back in to the mud making up my path as I go. Staying on top of logs and floating debree like a wall off of someone's house, a roof off a barn another floating log then I slip and it's 3 feet of mud I go into. I start looking around and yelling for survivors hoping for a response, then I hear it again it's a baby's cry. A sound that is all so familiar. I look around to see my next step and it's another log, then a piece of dry dirt mound, then another log. I reach a point I come to were it is mud all around me and I know it's over my head. I start looking around at my options and see some metal roofing . Knowing that I'll sink in mud if I step into it I grab some metal roofing lay it on the mud and walk another fifteen feet to the end of the metal I just layed down. We had found and made a way to get through the mud . We started laying down more sheets of metal, plywood, even used a piece of carpet at one point to support us on top of the mud. Then I hear my baby's cry again, I'm close, I jump off a dirt mound onto a roof or wall that is upside down with the rafters showing that is floating on top of the mud. Then I hear a women's cry for help over the baby crying. I look to the east were highway 530 is covered with 5 feet of mud and see a mother 10 feet up a tree , holding a baby. She is pined against a tree by a couch that she had been sitting on when the mud slide accured. She at this point was about 20 feet from us. We looked around and found some plywood and some other debree to throw on top of the mud so we could make it to her and her baby. We get to her and she hands us her baby and I tell Steve to check the baby out to see if it needs medical attention. He says the baby looks OK and we hand the baby off to followers so we can attend to its mother. Are first victim, the baby is just 6 months old. I never hear or see the baby again. We then address mother, a 25 year old female named Amanda. She ask us for help and says she stuck. She is laying on her back, on the couch and tells me her feet are stuck. I climb the debree Which is a bunch of broken and snapped logs, a hot water tank, and the power wires that used to be over head attached to pole. I ask hear a bunch of ?'s As I look to see how I am gonna free this mother from this tree and couch. I look at her legs and can't see them from the knees down. I pull a little on each leg to see if I can free her but there pinned pretty good. I start pulling the couch apart with my hands ripping the fabric . I still can't see her feet and realize I've pulled all the fabric off the couch and nothing but a wood and metal frame left. I realize at this point , my tool that I brought with me, the chain saw is gonna get used. A civilian that was with us in this rescue assured me he was good with a chain saw. I explained to Amanda what we had to do and she said go for it. Then the sound of a helicopter in the distance was music to our ears. I then covered Amanda's face with my coat so the debree from the chain saw didn't get in her eyes. The chain saw started and the board pinning her was cut. We then pulled on her legs, got her free from the smashed pinned couch. Her injuries were not good but survivable . We got her out on to a back board, and I looked at her injuries closer. Broken arm, two broken ankles , a big gash in her foot, and a cut right above her eye. My chief was flagging down the chopper why I talked to Amanda and told her she was going for a helicopter ride. They hovered over us, droped a medic tec down ,and we packaged Amanda for an airlift. The cable came down, we attached to Amanda and away she went.we then looked in the distance, further east, houses and highway530 used to be the sight was nothing but mud and dirt for approximately 1 mile. We're did it all go? I told my chief what I saw, he was beneith me cause I was up 15 feet on the debree trying to see if there was anybody else we could save or help. We decided to pull out and re group. We made are way back to our engine. When we got off the mud back to our engine we noticed the water was starting to rise. We decided to move to higher ground and get a better view. When we reached higher ground we looked around a noticed the river was no longer flowing, steelhead drive was completely gone, and names and family's started rolling into our heads. It was all gone with no warning. Now all we can do is search and pray!!! PS Amanda was watching YouTube videos when she was hit by the mud slide. - Mike Blankenship
__________________
"The most worth-while thing is to try to put happiness into the lives of others." --Lord Robert Baden-Powell

[Idstud]

I have been following this on Kiro radio while Im driving up and down the I-5 cor-adore. Hearing things they were needing I got my work to donate a bunch of gloves some safety glasses and some reflective vests.

[Idstud]

Just FYI it takes 1.5 hours moving at a good pace from Darington to Granit falls via the Mountain loop Hwy. roads not bad normal for a mountain road but would recommend a good vehicle.