Mudslide
Searchers head toward the site of the mudslide in Oso, Wash., on Friday. (Lindsey Wasson / Associated Press /March 28, 2014)
SEATTLE — One month (click here) after the Washington state landslide that killed at least 34, President Obama is planning to survey the destruction firsthand.
Gov. Jay Inslee announced
Tuesday that Obama will travel on April 22 to the site of the mammoth
slide that closed State Route 530 and destroyed dozens of homes,
prompting a major disaster declaration from the White House.
The president is scheduled to meet with families of the dead and missing, first responders and recovery workers, Inslee said....
The consensus among some is that this was a catastrophic event. The depth at which the landslide took place was very deep. Basically, the usual methods of treating 'slide areas' would not have worked. The concern also surrounds the speed and amount of land that actually was part of that slide. It was unusal.
My opinion has not changed. I believe given the composition of the land and the harsh winter the frigid cold added to changes in the composition of the hill and altered the 'spaces between the sand' especially when temperatures started to increase. The ice within the land would be altered and quite possibly had loosened that entire structure.
There must have been a lot of weight on the bottom of the hill for such a massive amount of land to come down. That bottom structure once they get to it, if they get to it, will probably be studied to understand better what occurred.
