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14 dead; 176 reports of people missing in mile-wide mudslide

Exactly. That's what home insurance is for. No place is totally safe.

I can't even get insurance, no comp will touch me due to my location and the road to it that requires 4 wheel drive. It's my choice and if I lose everything I will cry but I won't whine.
 
I can't even get insurance, no comp will touch me due to my location and the road to it that requires 4 wheel drive. It's my choice and if I lose everything I will cry but I won't whine.
Wow! And you have electricity and internet?
 
ABC, NBC & WGN are covering this extensively in my area, in the local and national OTA broadcasts.

It's a shame some people ignored previous warnings of the potential landslide though.

Decades of warnings ignored in area of deadly Washington mudslide

I bought a 70 year old home in Seattle back in the early 90's. It sat upon a perch with a spectacular 180 degree view of the Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains. To the north of me, just 10 feet from my foundation was a steep (45 degree) embankment some 100 feet high.

The city issued a permit to build there. The guy dropped 300k to build a foundation which required 32 pilings, He lost his job 1/2 way through the build which meant he never put up downspouts and gutters on a framed home. After a year the bank slid threatening my home. It cost the guy 250k to solidify the embankment to protect my home.

Ironically when the slide occurred the head geo-technical engineer for the city came to survey the damage. I was standing on a neighbor's deck (it had a perfect view of the damage) with the guy and he had the balls to say to me if this guy applied today he would never have gotten a permit. I just about threw the guy off the deck. He was the same guy who signed the permit in the first place.
 
I bought a 70 year old home in Seattle back in the early 90's. It sat upon a perch with a spectacular 180 degree view of the Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains. To the north of me, just 10 feet from my foundation was a steep (45 degree) embankment some 100 feet high.

The city issued a permit to build there. The guy dropped 300k to build a foundation which required 32 pilings, He lost his job 1/2 way through the build which meant he never put up downspouts and gutters on a framed home. After a year the bank slid threatening my home. It cost the guy 250k to solidify the embankment to protect my home.

Ironically when the slide occurred the head geo-technical engineer for the city came to survey the damage. I was standing on a neighbor's deck (it had a perfect view of the damage) with the guy and he had the balls to say to me if this guy applied today he would never have gotten a permit. I just about threw the guy off the deck. He was the same guy who signed the permit in the first place.

Oh my goodness, almost unbelievable! I would have tossed him anyway!

Reminds me of living in New Mexico for 5 years. When the monsoon type rains hit the area, you don't want a home on a hill, and you don't want a home below a hill either. The only safe places to build a home is on high desert land with no mountains or arroyos nearby. And not travel at night when it's pouring rain.

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Phoenix man swept away by NM flood waters - AmericaNowNews.com
 
Over the course of time, we are supposed to pay attention to history. In my neighbor's case, the premium view property creates a huge annual tax revenue for the city. So money trumps sanity. The city damn well knew of the dangers just as the county and city knew of the dangers of slide in Darrington/Oso. It defies logic.
 
People all over the USA build homes where it's not safe, then when the inevitable happens they go crying to the government.

I vote that we tell them to scratch their ass.

Why should everyone else in the USA reward their bad judgement?

Because you'd have no one living in the most agriculturally productive areas of the country, that's one reason: The CA. Central Valley, the Great Plains, and the Mississippi Valley.
 
If they're able to predict mudslides.




This mudslide was actually predictable, I did a little research and there have been other slides at the same spot in the past.

Anyone who lived there had to know that they were living on borrowed time.

People who decide to live at dangerous locations put the lives of those who will have to rescue them or recover their bodies at risk.
 
I bought a 70 year old home in Seattle back in the early 90's. It sat upon a perch with a spectacular 180 degree view of the Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains. To the north of me, just 10 feet from my foundation was a steep (45 degree) embankment some 100 feet high.

The city issued a permit to build there. The guy dropped 300k to build a foundation which required 32 pilings, He lost his job 1/2 way through the build which meant he never put up downspouts and gutters on a framed home. After a year the bank slid threatening my home. It cost the guy 250k to solidify the embankment to protect my home.

Ironically when the slide occurred the head geo-technical engineer for the city came to survey the damage. I was standing on a neighbor's deck (it had a perfect view of the damage) with the guy and he had the balls to say to me if this guy applied today he would never have gotten a permit. I just about threw the guy off the deck. He was the same guy who signed the permit in the first place.

I would NEVER have bought such a house here. Not a chance, I didnt see it but it doesnt sound like your judgement was any better than the other guy. Those houses lose yards, garages, retaining walls, embankments all the time. ANd then the city or county has to bail them out.

I've bought 2 houses here in the greater Seattle area and I MADE SURE I wasnt on a cliff, under a cliff, on a beach (couldnt afford that anyway but didnt want it either), on or near a river or even in a floodplain. I also made sure I didnt buy a brick or mostly stone house as they do very poorly in earthquakes. Neither of my houses had huge trees directly over them. (And our trees are huge...in windstorms, branches bigger than trees in other places come down on your houses and cars).

I actually have some drop-dead views from my place...but just peek a boo from the house...you have to go out to the pasture for clear views of the mts....:)

The danger I will face in the future is wild fire or forest fire...because I do eventually want to move further out...that's going to be a tough call.
 
This mudslide was actually predictable, I did a little research and there have been other slides at the same spot in the past.

Anyone who lived there had to know that they were living on borrowed time.

People who decide to live at dangerous locations put the lives of those who will have to rescue them or recover their bodies at risk.

It was no more predictable than an earthquake.

You can clearly see from the aerial views that there were historically and prehistorically the same types of slides. See the same (overgrown) cuts in the ridges and where the slides pushed the river off course.

But they are not predictable as you seem to imply.
 
It was no more predictable than an earthquake.

You can clearly see from the aerial views that there were historically and prehistorically the same types of slides. See the same (overgrown) cuts in the ridges and where the slides pushed the river off course.

But they are not predictable as you seem to imply.




That's your opinion, which you are entitled to and I don't agree with and will ignore.




"The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people to ignore them." ~ Tommy Smothers.
 
This mudslide was actually predictable, I did a little research and there have been other slides at the same spot in the past.

Anyone who lived there had to know that they were living on borrowed time.

People who decide to live at dangerous locations put the lives of those who will have to rescue them or recover their bodies at risk.

Every time I'm in San Francisco, and I see all those houses built into the sides of hills on stilts, I think it's just a matter of time.
 
Every time I'm in San Francisco, and I see all those houses built into the sides of hills on stilts, I think it's just a matter of time.




Correct.

When the big earthquake comes the people in those structures will have a problem. And that quake is coming, like you said it's just a matter of time.
 
I would NEVER have bought such a house here. Not a chance, I didnt see it but it doesnt sound like your judgement was any better than the other guy. Those houses lose yards, garages, retaining walls, embankments all the time. ANd then the city or county has to bail them out.

I've bought 2 houses here in the greater Seattle area and I MADE SURE I wasnt on a cliff, under a cliff, on a beach (couldnt afford that anyway but didnt want it either), on or near a river or even in a floodplain. I also made sure I didnt buy a brick or mostly stone house as they do very poorly in earthquakes. Neither of my houses had huge trees directly over them. (And our trees are huge...in windstorms, branches bigger than trees in other places come down on your houses and cars).

I actually have some drop-dead views from my place...but just peek a boo from the house...you have to go out to the pasture for clear views of the mts....:)

The danger I will face in the future is wild fire or forest fire...because I do eventually want to move further out...that's going to be a tough call.

Wild fires must be pretty rare in Western Washington. Mudslides and falling trees, yes, but forest fires?
 
Wild fires must be pretty rare in Western Washington. Mudslides and falling trees, yes, but forest fires?

Our summers are extremely dry...most summers anyway....3-4 months with no rain. Forests fires are more common on the other side but we have many on this side too, esp. over on the Olympic Penninsula.
 
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