EVERETT — July Andre believes her whole career had been preparing her for the grave task she was assigned after the mudslide hit near Oso on March 22.
As recovery teams scoured the mile-wide debris field from the natural disaster, they began to retrieve personal items from survivors and the 43 people who were killed. Plucked from the mud, water and pieces of shattered homes were stuffed animals, tools and thousands of photos.
It became Andre’s job to manage the process of reuniting survivors with those lost things through a center Snohomish County set up after the slide. Her work as an advocate for vulnerable adults, and previous years as a hospice grief counselor, taught her this would be a matter of emotional healing, more than merely returning lost property.
“It’s been an honor,” Andre said Thursday. “I feel like I’ve been part of the families up there.”
More than six months and 60 family visits later, the reunification efforts are winding down. Of at least 2,200 personal belongings recovered from the slide zone and cleaned, Andre and others have managed to find the owners of all but a few hundred. Of some 20,000 photos and official documents, just 1,500 are unclaimed.
The remainder are housed in two former classrooms in a nondescript, one-story building next to the Denney Youth Center in north Everett.
They plan to stop using that facility by Nov. 1. Then, Andre will return to her job as the county’s long-term care ombudsman, helping look out for vulnerable adults living in long-term care facilities.
On Monday, the county put out a final call to families affected by the slide. Reporters toured the center Thursday.
“We feel confident that most of the items have been claimed,” said Heather Kelly, the county employee in charge of overseeing the long-term slide recovery.
The county downsized to the current facility Sept. 1.
Work on the recovered property started soon after the slide, at a 10,000-square-foot warehouse in Arlington.
They separated items into two groups.
The Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office evidence unit secured valuables such as cash, guns and jewelry. Other belongings went to the county’s property reunification center.
“No item was considered too small to be brought to the center,” Kelly said.
Shelves in the warehouse held quilts, fishing gear and wooden yard sculptures, horse saddles and bridles. There were antlers and duck decoys, teddy bears, chain saws and musical instruments.
“Everything that community represented, we saw a lot of,” Kelly said.
State archivists trained county staff and volunteers on how to clean the photographs using chemical solutions.
At its busiest, the center had up to 15 volunteers at a time cleaning and sorting items, or helping to identify them.
Often, the best leads about ownership came from slide survivors or family recognizing neighbors’ possessions. The task was emotional. Some families, overwhelmed, returned multiple times to make sure they hadn’t missed anything.
Andre took to social media sleuthing for clues. She searched news stories and obituaries.
“I wanted a Sherlock Holmes hat,” she said.
She often emailed or texted pictures to family members. While they didn’t always recognize what Andre had sent, “Sometimes I’d get a text back saying, ‘You just made my day.’ ”
A small, wooden statue gave one man unexpected joy.
“I had a person claim a little bear,” she said. “He was so surprised it would show up,” Andre said.
If a person declined to reclaim an item, Andre would set it aside.
“I’d always keep things around for a while and sure enough, they’d end up wanting them,” she said.
In the north Everett reunification center, some of the unclaimed items include a rubber Pillsbury Doughboy doll, a yellow BMX bike and a green, plastic container labeled “baby teeth.”
In another room, there’s a eight-foot-long row of stuffed animals from the slide debris: Paddington Bear, a plush bunny, a toy ladybug, a red-white-and-blue elephant.
Photos fill five small boxes. There are Polaroids and fading shots of fishing exploits. One black-and-white shows two smiling girls, perhaps in their pre-teens. Penned on the back are two names and the date, March 1968.
Andre remembers one family member telling her, “I used to just hate it when my mom was always taking pictures and now I’m so grateful.’”
The county hasn’t decided what it will do with the unclaimed property once the center closes, Kelly said. That will depend on what the affected families want. Privacy and respect are paramount. The county is adamant about not selling or giving away any of the recovered items.
As one chapter nears its close, another is just beginning. Discussions with family members and survivors about a future memorial have just started, with a private meeting scheduled late this month. The county waited at least six months to give families time to grieve.
Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465; nhaglund@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @NWhaglund.
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