OSO – Ron Thompson was fishing on the North Fork Stillaguamish River in the last hour of daylight on Wednesday when the hillside around the bend collapsed into the river.
He heard several trees snap, but otherwise had no idea what had just happened out of view downstream.
Then the water began to rise.
Quickly. Elizabeth Armstrong / The Herald
“It was spooky, because all of a sudden it got really quiet,” Thompson said.
The situation was still spooky on Thursday for several of his neighbors on Steelhead Drive near Oso, the tiny crossroads between Arlington and Darrington.
The neighbors worry that if the water keeps rising, they might have to evacuate.
The landslide completely blocked the river’s main channel, causing water to back up to the bank’s edge. The river found a way around the slide – but through the edge of the neighborhood, which is immediately across the river.
At least one home’s access road was cut off, and a summer cabin was sitting in water as high as a picnic table.
Several more homes could be one heavy rainstorm away from being flooded as well, said Chris Badger, emergency coordinator for the Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management.
“We’re asking the residents to prepare for an evacuation if the water level starts to rise,” Badger said.
Fortunately, the Stillaguamish River was running low on Thursday, she said. Emergency officials will monitor the weather for flood watches or warnings, and base any calls to evacuate on the circumstances as they arise, she said.
“It will depend on how fast the water level is coming up,” Badger said.
The landslide was no surprise. It collapsed at a site that has been dumping pieces of the hillside into the river throughout the area’s recorded history, according to a study commissioned by the Stillaguamish Tribe in 2001.
On Jan. 7, 1967, a landslide there dammed the river for four hours, according to the report, by Bellingham engineer Tracy Drury.
By 2001, slides had nibbled away 75 acres of land. After Wednesday’s slide, that area was even bigger, although an exact measurement was not immediately available.
Pat Stevenson, a biologist for the Stillaguamish Tribe, said about $1 million in grants had been secured to try to prevent Wednesday’s slide. For decades, slides have been dumping sediment into the river, gumming up salmon spawning beds downstream.
The $1 million was to have been spent trying to divert the river away from the hillside to stop it from undercutting the slide area.
“We were going to move the river 500 feet,” Stevenson said. “It looks like the river already did it.”
Unfortunately, the slide also moved the river too close to the neighborhood.
Emergency officials are planning to gather in Oso this morning to coordinate placing sandbags in front of homes to keep the water out.
Meanwhile, they are trying to figure out a more lasting solution, with help from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other government agencies, Badger said.
Oso Fire Chief Sandy Baker stopped by the neighborhood frequently Thursday to check on the water level and update residents on emergency plans.
“My personal feelings right now are for these people that have houses here,” she said. “It’s working a new channel, and I don’t know where it’s going to stop.”
Thompson agreed.
“When you’re on the river, the river rules,” Thompson said.
Reporter Scott Morris: 425-339-3292 or smorris@heraldnet.com.
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