Wonderful having 2 days in a row at home. Leaving for Los Angeles in the morning. When I was in Seattle last week was listening to some of the local discussions about the fatal landslide in Oso, and someone suggested there should be some criminal charges placed against the zoning department officials who led the people build in a landslide-prone location. I have to say theres a history there though. As a Coast Guardsman I was transferred to the headquarters in Seattle in January of 1974, and within weeks I began exploring the North Cascades. First time I stopped in Darrington at the restaurant (I think it was the only one there then) I was amazed to hear very distinct western North Carolina accents everywhere. I asked the restaurant owner about it and he said they were all transplanted Tarheels who had moved there in the early 20th Century to work in the logging industry. They had retained the legacy, customs, and accents. Snohomish County, which runs from Puget Sound to the top of the Cascade Range includes both the huge city of Everett (think BOEING) and those small towns (Arlington, Darrington, and of course Oso.) and so in many ways Everett, the county seat on the coast, and then the back half of the county and there were tensions between the two areas. In 1974-75 a Darrington logger needed a new home for his family, and since his father and grandfather had taught him how to build log houses, set about building one. The house was not a modest affair, well-built, two story and maybe 3500 square feet. When the Snohomish County building inspector wandered by and asked to see the building permit, was told there was none, so issued a citation. The logger was told to produce plans, so he drew some up and submitted them--they were rejected because they needed to be from an architect. When he went to an architect the quote was far more than the logger could afford. He was cited and had to show up in court. By that time of course the affair had attracted a lot of attention, especially from his friends and neighbors who resented the big city government folks pushing the country people around. On Court Day the logger showed up, as did hundreds of his friends and neighbors for support, and also with a proposal that the back half of Snohomish County secede and form a new county, White Horse County with Darrington as the county seat. The outcry was not lost on the judge or the officials from Snohomish County. The logger got to keep his house, and Im pretty sure there was a quiet agreement to leave those rural people alone. The down side is that the people of Oso were living in a slide-prone area that they never should have been permitted to live in. There had been slides in the 90s and again in the early 2000s, and a substantial amount of money was spent to stabilize the area. However at least one geologist from the University of Washington had studied the area and warned of the possibility of a massive slide. I think the county, remembering the previous episodes of trying to get country residents to comply with zoning ordinances had left them alone, and the end results were dramatic and fatal for the people of Oso. Im from the Government and Im here to help... is not a joke. I value freedom as much as anyone, but our climate, our landscape, our economy is changing; it always has been and it always will, and its going to take a lot of cooperation from a lot of people to cope with those changes. Danger will always be with us. Local archaeologists found a treasure of information when they excavated a Tlingit village in Brittish Columbia that had been buried by a landslide 10000 years ago. Residents of Cowlitz County were not alarmed, just mildly curious when Mt. St. Helens heated up but it never occurred to them that the thing could actually blow--after all were living in modern times. Entire communities are built on the ancient mudslides from the previous eruption of Mt. Raineer as well as Mt. Shasta, and yet knowing that both will erupt again doesnt phase them. And finally the people of the southwest are facing a drouth that could be millennial, and I have to say that some of them are indeed getting worried. Massive cooperation is simply good government, and I think its going to take a lot of it for us to cope. Its not a new concept: recall that it was Josephs interpretation of the Pharaohs dream that led them (which was the government of Egypt) to store up grain during the seven good years for the upcoming seven years of drouth--and they survived
Posted on: Sun, 06 Apr 2014 21:55:58 +0000
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