Washington Mudslide Fatalities Expected to Rise 'Substantially'

OSO, Wash.—Officials expect the number of people killed in the massive mudslide to rise "substantially" as questions persisted over whether warnings about the site's potential for disaster had been sufficiently publicized or heeded.

The list of 16 confirmed dead was expected to rise by at least nine after the bodies found at the scene were flown to the county's medical examiner, emergency officials said Wednesday night. The list of missing—while revised downward from 176—still stands at 90, with another 35 people whose status isn't yet certain.

Before and After the Mudslide

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Travis Hots, chief of Snohomish County Fire District 21, said Thursday morning that officials expect the number of fatalities to rise "substantially" as the medical examiner's office works to catch up with the recovery effort.

One of the bodies most recently found at the scene was of a motorist inside an automobile, whose vehicle was swept 200 feet off State Highway 530, county officials said. Recovery crews used cutting equipment to remove the roof of the debris-covered vehicle and recover the body, Mr. Hots said. He didn't say if the victim was a man or woman.

Mr. Hots said work crews at the site paid homage to the deceased by becoming silent. "When a person gets removed, it gets quiet out there," he said. "You can hear a pin drop."

A searcher stands Wednesday on a huge pile of rubble, including the remains of homes and other structures, at the scene of the deadly mudslide near Oso, Wash. Associated Press

More than 200 people using dogs, helicopters and sonar worked in the debris field Wednesday. In a tour of the site, wreckage of the community could be seen covered in a treacherous gray muck as deep as 20 feet in spots, as backhoes scooped up partial loads for inspection, according to a media pool report.

"There are finds going on continually," said Steve Mason, a fire battalion chief from south Snohomish County who is helping lead the operation.

Meanwhile, geology experts who had raised warnings about the possibility of such a catastrophic landslide years before continued to question why their reports went largely unheeded. Snohomish officials have said repeatedly that they believed residents had been made fully aware of the possibility of landslides in the area, but that such a major event couldn't be foreseen.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said in a television interview Wednesday that his office didn't know yet if warnings about the site were missed. "We will get to the bottom of that question when we have time to thoroughly evaluate it," he said.

Dramatic raw video from the Snohomish County Helicopter Rescue Team shows workers saving a four-year-old boy from the devastating mudslide that hit a rural Washington state community on March 22. Photo: Snohomish HRT

Jaime Smith, a spokeswoman for Mr. Inslee, said later: "Our office is focused 100% on search and recovery." Asked about whether the governor might initiate an official probe, Ms. Smith said "that conversation hasn't happened yet."

The most significant warning about the site's hazards came from Seattle geomorphologist Daniel Miller. His 1999 report, written for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as part of a separate fish-habitat assessment, noted the "potential for a large catastrophic failure" at what is known as the Hazel Landslide, the area that collapsed last weekend. In an interview this week, Mr. Miller said that report and others should have served as a warning to not build in the area.

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"We did something that should've raised a red flag," said Mr. Miller, who said he didn't bring his reports directly to the attention of county officials.

A smaller landslide in 2006 caused flooding but didn't destroy any homes. Mr. Miller said efforts were made to divert the river away from the base of the hill to prevent future slides. But he said those measures didn't eliminate all the risk, and he said he raised the issue with local landowners.

"The county could have made a greater effort to map landslide hazards—they could have chased down reports and maps," Mr. Miller said. "Mine was just one of several."

Searchers walk near a demolished house following a deadly mudslide that happened several days earlier in Arlington, Wash. Associated Press

In a briefing Wednesday, John Pennington, the county's emergency management director, said the county after the 2006 slide spent millions shoring up the area, including reinforcing the channel of the Stillaguamish River to keep it in its banks.

"We did everything we could in the community to make them feel safe," said Mr. Pennington, at times emotional. "That community felt safe. Sometimes big events just happen, and this event happened."

Meanwhile, at the slide site, estimated to be a mile wide, the mostly volunteer workers faced splintered wood, twisted metal and other dangers buried in the soggy mess. Falling rain made the site even more treacherous.

Searcher Garrett Simmons, on a break at the Oso fire station, said he fell up to his waist in a watery pit while scouring the scene this week. "Imagine 30 homes pressed together into a pile, you step on a piece of plywood and you can fall 5 feet into a pool of water," said Mr. Simmons, a 20-year-old carpenter.

Volunteers were assisted by numerous fire departments and other emergency agencies from across the West Coast. California's Riverside Fire Department dispatched an eight-person team with two 18-wheeler trucks loaded with equipment to help coordinate communications and logistics from a command center in Arlington, said Robert Gabler, a team coordinator.

A 77-person response team from a state disaster task force was on the scene with four dogs trained in cadaver and rescue search, as well as backhoes, shovels and other digging equipment, said Dan Hudson, one of the coordinators. While time was running out, he said, hope wasn't lost to find survivors in the wreckage.