SEATTLE, Wash. — A ceremony at the site yesterday marked the 7-year anniversary of the deadly Oso landslide that devastated the Steelhead Haven residential community and claimed 43 lives.
Geologist and former Whatcom County Council member Dan McShane spoke with KGMI just after the slide, and said it happened at the site of a smaller slide that occurred decades ago.
McShane said the slide expanded enormously, filling the valley wall to wall.
He said the Stillaguamish River has been cutting into the valley for generations and helped create ideal conditions for the slide.
As the Oso community has mourned and remembered those lost in the nation’s deadliest landslide, the US Geological Survey has continued to study the event in hopes of preventing similar tragedies.