Rescue crews sift through mud at Wash. slide

Rescue crews sift through mud at Wash. slide
OSO, Wash. — The disaster scene here has been compared to the eruption of Mount St. Helens.
In a panoramic sense, that's true. All about are mounds of gray sediment, as high as 15 feet, shaped like the ridges that the 1980 eruption left in the
Toutle River valley.
But that was a largely unpopulated area. This community along the Stillaguamish River was a cozy enclave of a few dozen homes before a mile-square chunk of
land overwhelmed it Saturday morning.
So far, 24 bodies have been found in the muck. Many more have yet to emerge; 176 people are still on a list of those unaccounted for, although that surely
includes people who weren't there when the hill crashed down.
Oso's connection to the rest of Washington, Highway 530, was swamped by the mudslide. The westernmost 200 yards of the highway have been cleared. Still, the
normal 20-minute drive through here between Arlington and Darrington is now a two-hour slog on a back-country access road.
On the hillside above Highway 530, a half-inch black cable has been strung through the brambles to restore phone and Internet service to Darrington. A creek
below is flowing brown.
The sounds of helicopters and planes boom through the valley as crews are ferried between the Arlington and Darrington sides of the mudslide.
Rescue teams haven't given up the hope of finding anyone alive, said John Pennington, Snohomish County emergency management chief. "We're still in rescue-
and-response mode."