Mapping landslide risks honors those lost in Oso

By The Herald Editorial Board

In the 10 years since the Oso landslide struck on a clear Saturday morning along the North Fork of the Stillaguamish River, work on two memorials has continued, honoring the memories of 43 residents of the Steelhead Haven neighborhood who died there, those who survived, the first responders and others who spent months at the site and the valley communities that worked to rebuild after the disaster.

Friday morning at 10:38, a two-acre memorial park off Highway 530 — the still-scarred hillside rising above it — will be officially dedicated. Among smaller memorials, a steel and bronze pillar rises above a stone and concrete plaza. Five years ago a bronze sculpture of a line of the neighbors’ mailboxes on Steelhead Drive was dedicated.

A second memorial is more mundane, but just as substantial. This memorial is made of laser measurements, tables of data, geologic history, observations, maps, political will and taxpayer revenue, intended to prevent a similar loss of life in one of the nation’s more geologically active regions and throughout the United States.

Ten years ago, some 18 million tons of rain-sodden mud, clay, sand and vegetation broke free from the hillside above the Stilly River and Steelhead Haven, burying homes, families, the river and Highway 530 in debris that piled more than 30 feet high in areas. The highway, connecting Arlington and Darrington opened three months later. The body of the last victim wasn’t recovered until that July.

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