Ninety still missing in mudslide area
<p>This March 24, 2014 aerial photo released by the U.S. Geological Survey shows the extent and impacts from the March 22 mudslide near Arlington in northwest Washington state. Sixteen bodies have been recovered, but authorities believe at least 24 people were killed. And scores of others are still unaccounted for, although many of those names were believed to be duplicates or people who escaped safely. (AP Photo/King County Sheriff, Air Support Unit)</p>
DARRINGTON, Wash. — Becky Bach watches and waits, hoping that search crews find her brother and three other relatives who are missing in Washington state’s deadly mudslide.
Doug Massingale waits too, for word about his 4-month-old granddaughter. Searchers were able to identify carpet from the infant’s bedroom, but a log jam stood in the way of a more thorough effort to find little Sanoah Huestis, known as “Snowy.”
With little hope to cling to, family members of the missing are beginning to confront a grim reality: Their loved ones might never be found, remaining entombed forever inside a mountain of mud that is believed to have claimed more than 20 lives.
“It just generates so many questions if they don’t find them,” Bach said. “I’ve never known anybody to die in a natural disaster. Do they issue death certificates?”
Search crews using dogs, bulldozers and their bare hands kept slogging through the mess of broken wood and mud again Wednesday, looking for more bodies or anyone who might still be alive nearly five days after a wall of fast-moving earth destroyed a small rural community. But authorities have acknowledged they might have to leave some victims buried in the debris some 55 miles northeast of Seattle.
Crews found another body late Wednesday, said Brian McMahan, a landslide incident spokesman. Authorities have now discovered at least 25 bodies, though not all have been recovered.
Christina Jefferds, 45, became the first mudslide victim to be identified by the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office late Wednesday. The medical examiner determined the Arlington, Wash., resident’s cause of death was accidental blunt impact.
The number of people missing also was reduced to 90. That number had been fluctuating — at one point reaching as high as 220 — but authorities were able to verify that dozens of people once reported missing had been located, Snohomish County Emergency Management Director John Pennington said.
Besides the 90 confirmed missing, authorities are looking into a list of 35 people who may or may not have been in the area at the time of the slide.