About 200 search personnel, many wearing rain gear and hard
hats, painstakingly combed through the disaster zone under
cloudy skies on Wednesday, taking advantage of a break from
Tuesday's rain showers to hasten their search for more victims.
White markers were placed at the edge of the gouged slope to
help in detecting any further shifting of the hillside.
Snohomish County Battalion Fire Chief Steve Mason, directing
part of the operation, said teams were making slow but steady
progress in locating additional remains.
"There are finds going on continually. They are finding
people now," he told reporters visiting the search site. "People
are under logs, mixed in. It's a slow process."
But Jan McClelland, a volunteer firefighter from Darrington
who was among the first to arrive at the scene and has spent
long days digging through the thick gray muck, conceded it was
possible some bodies may end up forever entombed at the site.
"I'm fearful we won't find everyone," she said. "That's the
reality of it."
County officials also started to address criticism for
allowing new home construction in the area after a 2006
landslide in the same vicinity, which followed numerous reports
detailing the risks of slides dating back to the 1950s.
A 1999 study by geologist Daniel Miller for the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers had warned of the potential for a "large
catastrophic failure" in the area, about 55 miles northeast of
Seattle.
The county's emergency management director, John Pennington,
told reporters that local authorities had spent millions of
dollars on work to reduce landslide risks in the area after the
2006 event.
He suggested that while officials and residents were aware
of vulnerability to unstable hill slopes, Saturday's tragedy
came out of the blue.
About 200 search personnel, many wearing rain gear and hard
hats, painstakingly combed through the disaster zone under
cloudy skies on Wednesday, taking advantage of a break from
Tuesday's rain showers to hasten their search for more victims.
White markers were placed at the edge of the gouged slope to
help in detecting any further shifting of the hillside.
Snohomish County Battalion Fire Chief Steve Mason, directing
part of the operation, said teams were making slow but steady
progress in locating additional remains.
"There are finds going on continually. They are finding
people now," he told reporters visiting the search site. "People
are under logs, mixed in. It's a slow process."
But Jan McClelland, a volunteer firefighter from Darrington
who was among the first to arrive at the scene and has spent
long days digging through the thick gray muck, conceded it was
possible some bodies may end up forever entombed at the site.
"I'm fearful we won't find everyone," she said. "That's the
reality of it."
County officials also started to address criticism for
allowing new home construction in the area after a 2006
landslide in the same vicinity, which followed numerous reports
detailing the risks of slides dating back to the 1950s.
A 1999 study by geologist Daniel Miller for the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers had warned of the potential for a "large
catastrophic failure" in the area, about 55 miles northeast of
Seattle.
The county's emergency management director, John Pennington,
told reporters that local authorities had spent millions of
dollars on work to reduce landslide risks in the area after the
2006 event.
He suggested that while officials and residents were aware
of vulnerability to unstable hill slopes, Saturday's tragedy
came out of the blue.
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