Emergency managers at the scene of Saturday’s deadly landslide near Oso say several hundred searchers will once again fan out over the debris field to look for victims on Wednesday.
On Tuesday night, the local fire chief raised the death toll from 14 to 16, and said eight additional bodies have been located but not yet recovered.
Frequent rain showers are making it challenging for the professional and volunteer responders to move across the square mile of soupy, slippery debris. Search dogs and cadaver dogs are sniffing crushed houses. Other crews wield chain saws or backhoes.
Snohomish County Fire Chief Travis Hots describes these efforts as both a rescue and recovery operation.
“Even if we just said, ‘It’s just a recovery operation,’ we are still going at this on all eight cylinders. We’re going at this hard to get everybody that is out there, missing,” he said.
The number listed as missing and unaccounted for fluctuated wildly Tuesday after restored telephone and Internet service allowed people to check in from upstream of the landslide.
Snohomish County’s emergency management director says he hopes to release a credible and better-verified number later today.
