Into the Mud / 911 Calls

Inscription

[Left panel] INTO THE MUD The Search Local firefighters, community members, and volunteers from all over began a search for victims almost immediately after the slide. They were joined by a quickly expanding group of formal response agencies from near and far. Altogether, the search team totaled some 900 people. They ultimately rescued 11 survivors and located the bodies of all 43 victims. The search was physically demanding and hazardous. The mud was as deep as 40 feet and had a quicksand-like quality. It contained power lines, jagged metal, sewage, toxic substances, and other dangers. Bad weather made the effort even more difficult, with 19 inches of rain over the following three weeks. [Credit printed inside the upper right photograph, along its lower left edge] AP Photo/Elaine Thompson [Caption under the upper right photograph, firefighters descending a wooded slope] Many of the volunteers were loggers, who brought chainsaws and other equipment critical for clearing downed trees. [Quotation in the lower right of the panel, set over a photograph of downed timber] "There was this one time when I just stepped off, and then I was just soaked up to my rib cage, right here, and I could barely move. And that's the time I was like 'this could be a bad idea.' All I wanted was hard dry land." — KRISTOPHER LANGTON Local Resident [Credit printed vertically, reading top to bottom, along the right edge of the photograph of searchers and an inflatable boat] AP Photo/Elaine Thompson [Caption over the lower photograph, searchers and an inflatable boat in the mud] Small boats were essential in the early days of the search. Eventually, workers were able to clear a section of the debris blocking the North Fork of the Stillaguamish River, and the floodwaters receded. [Credit printed at the lower left of the panel's bottom background photograph, soldiers wading in deep mud] The National Guard / Spc. Matthew [UNVERIFIABLE: photographer's surname — white credit type over bright mud, below resolution] [Right panel] 911 CALLS Coming to Terms with the Unthinkable Within seconds of the slide, people began calling 911. Each call only told a fragment of the story: a displaced house on the west side, a collapsed house on the east, or rising floodwaters. It took several hours before authorities grasped the full magnitude of the disaster. Having engulfed everything in its path, the mudslide resulted in one half square mile of debris that dammed the North Fork Stillaguamish River, creating a temporary lake. And, horrifyingly, an entire neighborhood had been obliterated. The rescue effort would be a massive undertaking. Operations centers were quickly established, and that evening, Washington State Governor Jay Inslee proclaimed a state of emergency. [Credit printed inside the upper right photograph, along its lower left edge] AP Photo/The Seattle Times, Lindsey Wasson [Caption under the upper right photograph, a wrecked house on the highway] The slide shattered this house and pushed it onto SR 530. Emergency responders initially thought the scope of the disaster was limited to one or two damaged homes. [Credit printed vertically, reading top to bottom, along the right edge of the photograph of the mailboxes] David Ryder / Stringer / Getty Images [Caption under the photograph of mailboxes and a Seattle Times newspaper box standing in floodwater] Flooding threatened buildings upstream, as the blocked river overflowed, searching for a new path. [Credit printed vertically, reading top to bottom, along the right edge of the helicopter photograph, set in two lines] Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections [Caption under the photograph of a helicopter lettered SNOHOMISH COUNTY, low among downed timber at the edge of standing forest, a crew member beside its open door] A volunteer search and rescue helicopter team, who were training nearby, arrived within 30 minutes. [Quotation at the right of the panel, set over an aerial photograph of the slide] "There's a mudslide and everything's gone. The houses are gone.... We watched hundreds of trees come falling.... There are people yelling for help." — 911 CALLER [Credit printed at the lower left of the panel's bottom aerial photograph:] AP Photo/The Seattle Times, Lindsey Wasson

Awaiting verification