Stunning photos of Oso, WA mudslide before and after at this website:

[Cleita]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2588991/Incredible-shots-devastation-caused-Washington-landslide-left-14-dead-revealed-geologists-warned-dangers-1999.html

Scroll down for awesome photographs.

Also, read this article about the lumber company Summit Lumber that was clear cutting and selective logging on the site causing the erosion that was waiting for a rain storm to take it out.

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2023225363_mudslideloggingxml.html

State allowed logging on plateau above slope
In recent decades the state allowed logging — with restrictions — on the plateau above the Snohomish County hillside that collapsed in last weekend’s deadly mudslide.

By Mike Baker, Ken Armstrong and Hal Bernton
Seattle Times staff reporters


The plateau above the soggy hillside that gave way Saturday has been logged for almost a century, with hundreds of acres of softwoods cut and hauled away, according to state records.

But in recent decades, as the slope has become more unstable, scientists have increasingly challenged the timber harvests, with some even warning of possible calamity.

The state has continued to allow logging on the plateau, although it has imposed restrictions at least twice since the 1980s. The remnant of one clear-cut operation is visible in aerial photographs of Saturday’s monstrous mudslide. A triangle — 7½ acres, the shape of a pie slice — can be seen atop the destruction, its tip just cutting into where the hill collapsed.

Multiple factors can contribute to a slide.

With the hill that caved in over the weekend, geologists have pointed to the Stillaguamish River’s erosion of the hill’s base, or toe.

But logging can also play a role in instigating or intensifying a slide, by increasing the amount of water seeping into an unstable zone, according to an analysis of the watershed submitted to the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

In May 1988, when a private landowner, Summit Timber, received approval to begin logging above the slope, scientists raised alarms about the removal of trees that intercept or absorb so much water, according to documents obtained by The Seattle Times.

more at link

Seems to me that the lumber company/companies involved need to be sued and any agency who was complicit in giving it permits to log when alarms were being raised by scientists. I find this heartbreaking because of the greed of the giant lumber companies have trumped any concern for life and ecology in our natural forests. I have traveled all over the north west in one of my lives and it never failed to amaze me what these lumber oligarchs were doing and how they convinced the local people to vote against their own best interests because of the jobs they needed to feed their families, jobs that often lost them fingers and limbs in accidents.

[Cleita]

1. ...

for exposure

[SheilaT]

2. Thank you for posting.

When this first happened and all I saw was that photo of the road covered in the slide, I couldn't quite get what the big deal was. As it happens, I don't have a TV and so I missed what was probably good coverage showing the actual devastation. So thanks again for this.