EVERETT, Wash. — For more than five weeks, crews painstakingly sifted through mud and debris, at first searching for survivors and then for the remains of those buried by the mudslide in Washington state. On Monday, officials called off the active search, though two bodies remain entombed in the tangled pile.

At times, people dug with their bare hands, recovering 41 victims, but Steve Hadaway and Kris Regelbrugge have not been found after a hillside collapsed March 22 and swept across the small community in Oso about an hour northeast of Seattle.

“This has been a difficult decision” because the families of the two still missing seek closure, Snohomish County Sheriff Ty Trenary said at a news conference Monday.

Frank Hadaway, whose brother Steve died in the slide, said he understood the county’s decision.

“The amazing thing is that of 43 people who were lost, 41 were found,” he told The Seattle Times. “So, do I have an issue? No. Reality is reality. We knew this day was coming sooner or later.”

Trenary said officials have not given up on finding Steve Hadaway and Regelbrugge. He said about 30 people would continue a scaled-back search of a smaller area if weather and other conditions allow. At its peak, the efforts involved about 1,000 volunteers.

Advertisement

An active search could resume if conditions change, allowing crews into areas that were previously inaccessible, officials said.

“To think about someone being left behind, that’s unbearable to me,” said Tim Ward, who was injured in the slide and whose wife, Brandy, died.

“The thought of Kris still being out there on that property is so solemn to me. She put her soul into that land,” he said.

The task now switches to clearing debris from the 1-square-mile slide that wiped out a small riverside community, blocked a state highway and partially dammed the North Fork of the Stillaguamish River.

The search for people has involved heavy equipment, helicopters and hundreds of people and dogs.

Volunteers spent thousands of hours helping in the search or collecting donations for the community. Millions in private donations have been raised, and millions more in federal aid has been promised.

Advertisement

Officials and others still clung to the hope of finding survivors, even days after the slide. Family members and neighbors also conducted their own searches, using chain saws and their bare hands to dig through the mess of broken wood, fallen trees and mud.

At one point, the list of missing people had about 220 names, but authorities quickly whittled down that number as they identified duplicate names or as people believed missing in the slide turned up safe.

The death toll slowly ticked up each week, as more bodies were recovered and identified.

Among the dead were three generations of one family, a 4-month-old girl and her grandmother, a young couple who were planning an August wedding by the river, and contractors working in the neighborhood that morning.

State transportation officials have said it could take up to three months to clear the debris from the highway.

Meanwhile, the county is leading long-term recovery efforts for the area, including housing, economic recovery and mental health.


Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.