From Gary Haakenson: Reflections on 3-year anniversary of Oso landslide

It’s been three years since I received the phone call about a mudslide over Washington State Highway 530 also know as the Arlington Darrington Road. My initial thought was that it had been raining for months in the Northwest and I wasn’t surprised. And it was a State highway so maybe they’d need the county’s help clearing it, but otherwise it was just another rainy Saturday and I found it a little odd that I got a call about it. Maybe my staff was just keeping me informed.
As I found out within minutes, it was going to be anything but “another rainy Saturday” and it would soon become a tragedy that claimed 43 lives and became a national news story.

The slide was a monster, in so many ways. It not only blocked the highway, it rerouted it. It rerouted the Stillaguamish river. It destroyed homes. It mangled cars. It claimed 43 lives and changed the lives of countless more.

I have attempted to write this post each of the last two anniversaries of the slide without success. The slide became my job. I worked with all forms of government. Local, state, federal. Mayors, Councilmembers, Firefighters and Law Enforcement. Red Cross. National Guard. FEMA. State Senators and Legislators. US Senators and Congressmen. The Governor. I saw them all…the good the bad and the ugly.

Early news reports were saying hundreds of people were trapped. Headlines were crazy. Stories were often downright inaccurate. The news media were everywhere. I became intimately close to the press as days went by. With them I also saw the good, the bad and the ugly.

There will always be enduring images that stay with me. The meetings that I held with survivors as they tried to put their lives back together. The long hours put in by so many people on behalf of folks they didn’t even know. Often forgotten is the work that the Medical Examiners Office put in identifying remains. And well meaning citizens who donated cash and clothing. County employees who suddenly had new job descriptions.

But the thing I will always remember is the digging. Literally within minutes of the event, locals were digging in the mud looking for survivors. Unless you actually saw the area where people were risking their lives searching, you can’t imagine it. There were local residents. There were family members. There were off duty firefighters. There were people who just wanted to help.

Eventually the “professional” searchers were brought in including the National Guard. And that led to heavy equipment because it was impossible to hand dig through the mud and debris. As remains were found the work stopped while a hand search resumed. The work crews were told to be sensitive and thorough, And they were exemplary in their work ethic. I could write an entire blog on that process alone but their results speak volumes.

Bringing some sense to the chaos, the Sheriffs Department was relentless in their search to find all 43 victims. When I first saw the area I knew there was no chance we would ever find all the victims. The Sheriff proved me wrong. It became a ritual in my office when the Sheriff would come in and tell me we were really close to finding the last victim. He laid out his case and asked me to fund another few days of searching. I can’t recall how many times he came but I know I believed, as he did, that we were close, and I agreed to funding the search for a few more days each time.

Two days after his final request, I was the guest speaker at a Rotary Club, ironically talking about the slide, when I received a call from the Sheriff. His only words were “we have her”. Tears welled up in my eyes. After months, all 43 victims had been accounted for. Closure, if nothing else for the families.

As there have been in the past couple years, there are memorials today. There are news stories. It’s a sad day, but it’s one more day in the past, and one step ahead for the victims’ families.

And one more chance for me to say thanks to all who worked tirelessly in awful conditions to find the 43 souls that we remember today.

— By Gary Haakenson
Gary Haakenson served as Edmonds mayor from 2000-2010, and also sat on the Edmonds City Council from 1996-1999. He resigned from the mayor’s job in July 2010 to take a job with Snohomish County, where he worked until his retirement in 2014. This post originally appeared on Haakenson’s Random Stuff blog March 22, 2017 and has been reposted here with permission.
  1. Beautifully written Gary.

    A touching tribute to the victims and all who worked in the disaster’s aftermath.

  2. Thanks, Gary , for insight into the difficult and heartbreaking effort to find the victims of the Oso slide.
    People do come through in such times.

  3. Those that don’t learn from history are destined to repeat it. This terrible tragedy did not just happen in a vacume. Many were well aware of many things, particularly government officials, in my opion. There was a reason the state settled the lawsuit.

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/10/11/oso-washington-landslide-settlement/91893332/

    I admire the people that were on the ground in the middle of this mess trying to save lives while it was still unfolding. Those people are heros.

    Again, those that don’t learn from history, particularly those in an official capacity…….THIS as in many other areas in Snohomish County was an accident (that many were aware of just through common sense, was an ACCIDENT waiting to HAPPEN.

    There is plenty of information online regarding all of the details. In my opinion, 43 people did not have to die through some of the negligence beforehand.

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