During the disastrous Darrington-Oso Mudslide disaster relief professionals learned important lessons from the Darrington volunteers.  Greg Sieloft was one such official. Follow the link and read how one small town’s response to the biggest disaster to hit the state of Washington, changed a man.

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20140413/NEWS01/140419725/6-days-in-disaster-zone

Explanation of photo: The chopped hillside to the right of the photo is the 900 foot hillside from which the slide occurred. The hillside broke like some giant cleaver had severed part of it and created that sheered face.

The water in the foreground is the Stillaguamish River and as you can see, it is blocked and backed up from the slide across it.

In the background and to the left in the photo is a squiggly gray line that leads back into the slide–that is Highway 530, the major route into and out of Darrington. We are still not sure how much of the one and a half mile of highway still exists beneath the mud.

With the blockage of Highway 530, Darrington faces severe economic hardships. The Hampton Mill that employs upwards of three hundred workers struggles to survive the increased costs for bringing in raw material and sending out their finished products. Increased fuel costs drive local families to despair as the long roundabout route that must now be traversed to go to work and to take children to school, breaks strained budgets. Tourist revenue, always an important part of Darrington’s economy with everything from the famous Bluegrass Festival to smaller festivals and musicians and artists, has been completely halted. Without Highway 530 open, tourists will not be stopping in this small town on their way along the scenic Cascade Loop and on to Eastern Washington. Where last summer thousands of happy tourists drove through, stopped, ate, rested, and bought from Darrington artists and merchants this summer promises to be one silence and isolation.  Highway 530 is not expected to be open even to local traffic for upwards of three months.

Can this small town survive? Only time will tell.

Photo courtesy of WSP.