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WEDNESDAY, 07.23.2014
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OSO MUDSLIDE
Resolutions in tragedy Searchers believe last victim found
Geologists find no single cause behind slide
By Eric Stevick Herald Writer
OSO — Searchers believe they have found Kristine “Kris” Regelbrugge, the final missing victim of the March 22 Oso mudslide. Regelbrugge was among 43 people buried in the slide. She was 44. Persistence, with a little luck, paid off. Clues led searchers to the rubble of Regelbrugge’s garage, buried under about 18 feet of debris, Sheriff Ty Trenary said at a press conference Tuesday afternoon. “She was much deeper... Kris Regelbrugge than we expected her to be,” Trenary said. Although forensic confirmation by the Snohomish County Medical Examiner is necessary, sheriff ’s officials are confident it was Regelbrugge they found about 8 a.m. Tuesday. “Four months ago, I never imagined we would be where we are today,” Trenary said. The Oso slide is the deadliest in U.S. history. It buried a squaremile area of the valley under a deep blanket of mud, clay, trees and flood waters. In the days afterward, Trenary’s deputies consulted with sheriff ’s offices in counties in Colorado where widespread flooding last fall resulted in multiple deaths. Several of the bodies in that disaster were never found. See REGELBRUGGE, Page A2
MARK MULLIGAN / HERALD FILE
Dale Topham, supervisor of Snohomish County’s geotechnical group, and other surveyors in May study the hillside that collapsed in the mudslide.
By Chris Winters Herald Writer
OSO — The March 22 mudslide that wiped out a neighborhood and killed 43 people was largely triggered by a previous landslide in the same area in 2006. This “remobilization” of the 2006 slide was far more dramatic and devastating than previous slide activity, and as a new report released Tuesday makes clear, there is no clear cause of what made that old slide come back to life, aside from the presence of water in the soil. The report, released Tuesday morning, is published by the GEER Association. GEER,
which stands for Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance, mobilizes teams of geologists and engineers to the sites of natural disasters that damage infrastructure. While the county is facing multiple lawsuits from people saying they should have been warned about the landslide risk, the report also notes that there are no national or state guidelines concerning levels of risk due to natural landslides that warrant government action. The goal of GEER is to gather as much data as possible as quickly as possible, before natural geological forces begin to obscure evidence of the disaster, and then release its findings publicly to spur on further research.
The report said that logging on the Whitman Bench above and behind the slope that collapsed might have led to increased groundwater in the slope. But that was just one possible factor among many others contributing to the slide, and it was not the most significant factor even to the amount of groundwater in the slope, the experts said. More significant to triggering the catastrophe was the large amount of rainfall in the weeks leading up to the slide, and many other factors that created conditions ripe for the slope to fail. See CAUSE, Page A6
Mukilteo council concludes Liias to keep both jobs By Sharon Salyer Herald Writer
MUKILTEO — City Council members criticized Mayor
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Jennifer Gregerson on Monday night for her decision to hire state Sen. Marko Liias as a policy analyst for the city, asking whether he could adequately carry out the duties of both roles. But at the end of more than an hour of debate, they acknowledged that there was little they could do about Gregerson’s decision to hire Liias.
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Council President Randy Lord said that questions have been raised both inside and outside the city on Liias’ hiring. “I will support the mayor’s ability to do the job to the best of her ability,” Lord said. “It’s the court of public opinion that will soon tell us” whether Liias was the right person for the job, he said. Council members said they
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were concerned over whether Liias can adequately fulfill his roles as both a policy analyst for the city and a state senator from the 21st District. Gregerson and Liias are longtime friends, leading some to allege that Gregerson simply hired her pal for the city job. During Monday night’s council meeting Gregerson said that
The Buzz Whole Foods’ 401(k) plan is among the nation’s stingiest. Maybe the (k) should stand for kale. Page A2
Liias was chosen from an initial group of 15 applicants because she thought he was the best candidate for the job. Gregerson provided council members with a document outlining how the decision to hire Liias was made, his duties and his pay, in which she noted “the See LIIAS, Page A7 Stormy 65/58, C6
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The mayor hired the state senator, who’s also a longtime friend, to serve as a policy analyst for the city.
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