Emotions have run at an extreme hight level now for six days in the aftermath of the catastrophic earth slide between Oso and Darrington. The ensuing Emergency Operations Response has been extraordinary. The coordination and allocation of resources, according to various reports and available news sources, has been inspiring. The public response to assist the emergency operations and donations to help the victims through this terrible tragedy has been and continues to be overwhelming. A great tribute to the American Citizens of this great Nation. Aside from the focus of incident management, rescue/recovery operations and the emotion packed daily progress, is the reality of post emergency work and subsequent investigation of what happened, how and why. This is perhaps a lousy time to even think about or address the probe into questions like, Why? But it seems as though our fine citizens should be prepared to raise a list of questions and demand some answers to few hard factual questions that should result from this tragedy. Those innocent victims will have died in vain if the public merely accepts the current responses from those Officials directly or indirectly associated with circumstances underlying this incident. Those Officials are allowed to address the root facts here, but not allowed to create their own facts. That is what I fear the Officials will be poised to do whenever the questions begin. I ask why did this even have to happen? It appears this was avoidable long long ago. The Shohomish County Government knew or should have known as early as 1997 this patch of land was unstable and questionable to be used for residential land use development. It was 1997 that a determination was made that deforestation would not be permitted along the ridge overlooking what is now the infamous slide area. In 1999, a report was submitted to the Army Corps of Engineers specifically identifying the area above the slide as unstable and a likely future candidate for a major catastrophic event. In 2006, A slide just above the newest slide area took out the river and changed its course. Dispite all of these indicators known to Snohomish County Land Use Planners and Governmental Officials, Citizens were issued permits to develop and build their homes upon this property currently under tons of mud and debris. To make matters even worse, many of these victims were not even officially made aware of the dangers involved. One Official recently interviewed on television stated he was not aware of the 1999 study and report, then when questioning continued admitted that such reports usually end up in someones desk and never distributed. Does that answer absolve an Official of responsibility? The author of the 1999 report warning the Army Corps of Engineers of the distinct probability of a major catastrophic event, stated in a recent TV interview that all of us have blood on our hands! Folks, there are obviously other like areas in the County and surrounding Counties that have similar findings. Are we to believe these too are in the Land Planning Officials cross hairs for development? We should be outraged this happened and those responsible should be held accountable to the innocent victims and their families. Their pen stroke started this inevitable senseless destruction and loss of life. Its that simple, a mere pen stroke and a nod. Then they turn their head and proudly walk away.
Posted on: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 03:12:01 +0000
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