Tag Archives: Darrington

CAN DARRINGTON SURVIVE?

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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-zoneOso_landslide_(WSP)

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.

UPDATE: DARRINGTON-OSO MUDSLIDE

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WHAT ABOUT DARRINGTON? FIRST HAND UPDATE ON MUDSLIDE

The small town of Darrington, Washington struggles with the impact of the Oso Mudslide.

The mudslide that occurred on March 22 crossed the major artery, Highway 530, that connected the small town of Darrington with “down below”, as the natives call it—Arlington and all points from there. The tidal wave of mud and debris swept from the north side of the Stillaguamish River, scooped up the river then slammed into the south side of the narrow valley. It rushed up through a small valley between two hills then swept back north, carrying everything in its path to total destruction. That mudslide continues to play havoc with the small community of Darrington.

Highway 530 is currently buried under thirty feet of mud and debris and completely closed. What that means for the small town of Darrington is isolation and potential economic ruin, especially with summer looming close. The Bluegrass Festival, the largest of several festivals hosted on the Darrington Bluegrass Grounds, normally brings tourists and dollars to the economically challenged town. With Highway 530 blocked the festivals may face an impossible obstacle. Such festivals are important to this small community’s financial health.

The small businesses in our town, as in most small towns, have a very slender margin of profit. With the increased cost of transportation of goods, that margin of profit may become non-existent. The Hampton mill that employs three hundred of our Darrington community members—a large employer for our area–faces greatly inflated costs for transportation of goods which negatively impacts the company.

For other citizens of the Darrington area, what this highway closure means on a daily basis is that a short thirty minute trip to Arlington’s Haggen’s or Arlington’s Safeway stores has become a trip of over an hour and a half to a Safeway or Haggen’s in Burlington to the north and west of our town. The one hour round trip to the grocery store is a minimum three hour round trip on a dark, windy road.

In addition to the pain and grief of lost loved ones, the Darrington-Oso Mudslide means that Mom and/or Dad must now be away from home an ADDITIONAL four to six hours due to the added commuting distance and the nature of the scenic route which they must traverse twice every day. The increased cost of fuel thins already-stretched budgets and adds to the tremendous stress being experienced.

So when you send prayers for Oso…please, don’t forget Darrington. Call us by name both in your prayers and in your donations. Don’t forget us. We’re the survivors on the EAST side of the Darrington-Oso Mudslide.

Darrington Proud. Darrington Strong. Darrington Doers! We Git ‘Er Done!

BOOMER, NEW INFORMATION

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Several hours after learning about Boomer, it is now understood that Boomer DID NOT survive the landslide, but rather walked two to three miles from his current home to the devastated area. Why?  Why would a dog walk that far to some awful place? Boomer’s former owner lived, and died, at that site. Boomer’s former owner, the brother of Boomer’s current owner, lived in a home wiped out by the mudslide. So, last night Boomer returned to the area where he had once been loved; an area that claimed the life of his first human.

No, the miracle we thought had happened, didn’t happen. A different miracle, a different testament of love happened. A dog crossed over two miles of extremely rough, dangerous terrain to the area where he once lived.

Dogs don’t forget; dogs grieve, and like the rest of us here in Darrington, maybe Boomer simply felt called to pay his respects to his former owner; felt called to “do something” in the face of such tragedy.

 

Last night, stumbling through the alien landscape of the #Oso mudslide devastation a horribly dehydrated and seriously injured dog was found. The dog who is slightly larger and a bit heavier-bodied than a German Shepherd was named Lucky because the animal rescue workers believed he had survived the worse disaster in Washington State history–a #disaster rivaling the explosion of Mount Saint Helens.  He was transported to the Darrington Rodeo/Bluegrass Grounds to our Animal Rescue Site to rest and be assessed overnight.

0403boomer-dog

This morning, two Darrington Volunteers, Hiliary Schultz and Carolyn Yost transported Lucky to the Arlington Animal Clinic after pain killers had been administered to make the rough trip bearable for the seriously injured dog. The temporary, disaster route is a potholed, rough graveled, one-lane roadway. It bounced their vehicle as the tires crunched the gravel up and down the mountainside behind and adjacent to the swamps and mud of the devastated area where excavators diligently dug and crews watched for the uncovering of human remains. They delivered Boomer to Arlington Animal Clinic.

For a few hours, we believed Boomer had survived a disaster that had claimed the lives of our friends, family and neighbors. For a few hours we rejoiced. A cheer rang through the firehouse as we crowded around the brand new laptop that had just been donated to our disaster relief efforts yesterday by Microsoft. As the story about Boomer came on screen, a cheer rang off the walls of that cavernous building. Volunteers and fire department personnel threw arms around each other laughing and cheering.

When Trudy LaDouceur, District Secretary of Darrington Fire District #24 said, “This is so great. I am so sick of death,” she spoke for all of us.

Amidst sorrow and loss; pain and grief, for a few hours we believed that a miracle occurred last night: Boomer walked out of the deadly Oso Mudslide, and brought hope and healing to the hearts of Darrington’s people.

Tonight, we know that didn’t happen. A little bit of our hope slid away, a slippery dark eel sliding into the muddy swamps of that alien landscape that swallowed the lives of those we loved.

http://www.king5.com/community/blogs/the-pet-dish/Boomer-the-dog-found-Oso-slide-253832561.html

Here is the updated report on Boomer, the dog who “felt called” to traverse the deadly landscape where once a person he loved had lived. We here in Darrington understand that feeling; it is the “call” that takes our volunteers to that debris field, day after day.

http://www.king5.com/community/blogs/the-pet-dish/Boomer-the-dog-found-Oso-slide-253832561.html