Footage from 22 March of the mudslide in Oso, in the US state of Washington, shows a young boy being carried away by a helicopter rescue team. 
 
 Authorities say they have recovered the bodies of two more people killed in a massive mudslide in the US state of Washington, bringing the total to 16. 
 
 The officials said they thought they had located eight more bodies under the mud but were unable to retrieve them. ||||| Originally published March 25, 2014 at 11:50 AM | Page modified March 26, 2014 at 11:18 AM 
 
 Rescuers expanded their search Tuesday and found additional bodies in the muck of a massive mudslide in Snohomish County. 
 
 Use an interactive tool to see the landslide’s deadly path. 
 
 Interactive map: A detailed view of the neighborhood hit by the landslide 
 
 Read about the lives of the victims. 
 
 Use an interactive to see how, even as warnings mounted, homes kept being built in slide-prone Steelhead Haven. 
 
 A collection of stories and visuals about the disaster, why it may have happened and the people it affected. 
 
 On a day with no shortage of grim news, the family of Navy Cmdr. L. John Regelbrugge III found the smallest measure of solace amid the wreckage of what four days ago was a thriving community. 
 
 Two of Regelbrugge’s brothers, joining in Tuesday’s expanded search for survivors of the Oso-area mudslide, found the body of the 32-year Navy veteran on his shattered property on Steelhead Drive, said his sister-in-law, Jackie Leighton of Vacaville, Calif. 
 
 “His brother Greg put a work shirt over him. They said he had massive injuries, so at least he didn’t suffer,” Leighton said. 
 
 The body of Regelbrugge’s wife, Kris, a mother of five, was found later. 
 
 Both were among the victims that officials said were found Tuesday during a difficult search that can no longer be labeled anything but a recovery. Chief Travis Hots of Snohomish County Fire Districts 21/22 said two more bodies were recovered Tuesday, bringing the official death toll to 16. 
 
 But Hots said searchers believe they have located eight more bodies that have not been recovered. 
 
 John Pennington, the county’s emergency-management director, said during a morning briefing that he remained hopeful for a miracle and the possibility a survivor may be found. But he also pointed out that a state mortuary-assistance team had been called in to assist. 
 
 “I think that speaks for itself,” Pennington said. 
 
 The number of those unaccounted for remains at 176, a figure officials are still trying to ratchet downward by verifying names, Pennington said. 
 
 He said three Snohomish County sheriff’s deputies who specialize in missing persons are helping sort through the names. He hoped to have a more accurate number Wednesday. 
 
 For a community mindful that no survivors have been found since the first few hours after Saturday’s mudslide, the bad news is unrelenting. 
 
 “We all grew up here. We all spent 99 percent of our life here, or more. It’s devastating. It’s just devastating,” said Teresa Hathaway, 55, of Arlington. 
 
 Guard, FEMA help 
 
 Tuesday’s search was conducted amid worsening weather conditions, but was aided by the arrival of teams from the Washington Army National Guard and Federal Emergency Management Agency. 
 
 Dozens spent the day carefully maneuvering through shattered trees and the unrecognizable debris of homes and twisted propane tanks, searching with specially trained dogs and a variety of technologies such as sonar. 
 
 “It’s almost like walking in ice in places,” Hots said of the difficult terrain. 
 
 Describing a visit to the mudslide, the veteran firefighter said the damage was worse than he imagined. 
 
 He said he initially believed that people who had been swallowed by the slide while driving on Highway 530 would be buried in their cars and could be rescued. But those “vehicles are like twisted and tore up in pieces. ... It’s just amazing, the magnitude of what this slide has done,” Hots said. 
 
 Officials stationed in Darrington augmented their search teams Tuesday with community volunteers eager to help in any way they could. Many had already risked arrest by conducting unauthorized searches in the days after the hillside gave way and buried a community in up to 20 feet of mud and debris. 
 
 Gov. Jay Inslee joined a morning meeting of the Darrington Fire District with the new volunteers, saying afterward that “this remains an aggressive rescue effort.” 
 
 Officials did have good news for those in Darrington, east of where the slide took place: Phone and Internet services were restored and a second road into town, the Mountain Loop Highway, should open Thursday. 
 
 “Awful” noise 
 
 The Sheriff’s Office released recordings of the 911 calls reporting the slide and several hours of harrowing — even heartbreaking — exchanges between dispatchers and the first-responders on the scene. 
 
 The first was made by a woman who reported that water was running across Highway 530 and that there appeared to be a roof from a home or barn in the middle of the road. The calls grew increasingly frantic as the magnitude of the disaster comes into sharper focus. 
 
 One panicked woman called to say her neighbors’ houses were gone and that people were screaming for help. 
 
 Minutes later, a man called to say his neighbors’ home was buried, but that he could “hear them tapping underneath” the roof, which was sticking out of the muck. 
 
 That caller, Michael Lincoln, 50, and his wife were sleeping in Saturday when his son’s girlfriend, who had been on their front porch, pounded on the door, saying trees and mud were racing up their driveway along Highway 530. 
 
 Lincoln bolted awake and saw earth and vegetation rumbling toward his home. 
 
 “The noise was awful,” he told The Seattle Times on Tuesday. “She said it sounded like the end of the world. It was the sound of tens of thousands of things hitting each other.” 
 
 The river of debris slowed and finally settled. Lincoln ran out to the highway and sunk to his waist in mud. 
 
 His neighbor’s house was gone. Another home, owned by Linda McPherson and her husband, Gary “Mac” McPherson, had been split in two. Linda McPherson was killed. 
 
 Lincoln started yelling. Another man showed up and also started yelling. 
 
 They heard a voice in the rubble — Gary McPherson. They also heard him tapping. 
 
 Lincoln called 911. Others showed up to help. They ran and grabbed tools and started demolishing the McPhersons’ roof. 
 
 “We grabbed chain saws and axes and big crowbars,” he said. “We just started cutting through two-by-fours.” 
 
 Eventually they saw his fingers sticking up. 
 
 Emergency crews arrived in time to extricate McPherson, who was in his easy chair, trapped by a log. 
 
 The McPhersons’ daughter Kate McPherson said the couple had been drinking coffee, separated only by a living-room end table, when the slide shattered the house and shoved what remained about 150 feet. 
 
 Gary McPherson is recovering with relatives in Everett. 
 
 Watching carefully 
 
 Based on aerial photographs, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated the size of the slide at about 175 million cubic feet. 
 
 Engineers hope to install laser instruments to monitor the slide’s motions, but aren’t sure when that will be possible. 
 
 The slide is likely to keep creeping, and it’s tough to say whether another large slide could follow on its heels, said University of Washington landslide expert David Montgomery. 
 
 The massive slide relieved pressure within the slope and drained away the water that contributed to the failure, which lowers the risk of another large slide, he said. But at the same time, the failure creates new stresses and weakens the slope, which means more slides are not out of the question. 
 
 “It’s certainly something you would want to be watching very carefully,” Montgomery said. 
 
 The director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network discounted speculation that a tiny quake March 10 might have triggered the slide. 
 
 The quake measured 1.1 on the magnitude scale, said John Vidale. Very small quakes are hard to locate precisely, but the epicenter seems to have been about 2.5 miles underground and about a mile northeast of the slope that failed. 
 
 But the shaking from a 1.1 quake is so slight that even someone standing right on top of the epicenter probably wouldn’t have felt it, Vidale said. 
 
 “That earthquake wouldn’t have triggered anything.” 
 
 It’s even possible the seismic signal was caused not by a quake, but by the ground in the vicinity shifting before the slide, he added. 
 
 Seattle Times staff reporters Craig Welch, Sandi Doughton, Sara Jean Green, Mike Carter, Lynn Thompson and Jack Broom and Times news researcher Miyoko Wolf contributed to this story. Reporters Brian M. Rosenthal and John Higgins reported from Arlington. Reporter Alexa Vaughn reported from Darrington. 
 
 Want unlimited access to seattletimes.com? Subscribe now! ||||| Originally published March 24, 2014 at 11:36 AM | Page modified March 24, 2014 at 11:45 PM 
 
 Photo by Ted S. Warren /The Associated Press; Graphic by The Seattle Times 
 
 Officials said they have received 176 reports of people missing as rescuers continue to search the debris from a milewide mudslide in Snohomish County. 
 
 Dec. 14-15, 2006: Hanukkah Eve Windstorm blamed for at least 14 deaths in Western Washington, including eight who died of carbon-monoxide poisoning. 
 
 May 18, 1980: Mount St. Helens in Skamania County erupted, following a magnitude 5.1 earthquake. The heat melted glaciers and caused massive mudflows, killing 57 people and destroying more than 200 homes. 
 
 Oct. 12, 1962: The Columbus Day Windstorm claimed 46 lives as it moved from Northern California through Oregon, Washington and British Columbia, with winds gusting over 100 mph. 
 
 Jan. 13, 1950: Blizzard and high winds dumped 21 inches of snow on the Seattle area, claiming 13 lives. 
 
 Aug. 20-Sept. 9, 1910: The Great Fire of 1910 burned about 3 million acres in Northeast Washington and Northern Idaho, killing 85 people, 72 of them firefighters. 
 
 March 1, 1910: Stevens Pass Avalanche killed 96 people after it swept two trains down a ravine. It remains the deadliest avalanche in U.S history, and Washington’s worst natural disaster. 
 
 Use an interactive tool to see the landslide’s deadly path. 
 
 Interactive map: A detailed view of the neighborhood hit by the landslide 
 
 Read about the lives of the victims. 
 
 Use an interactive to see how, even as warnings mounted, homes kept being built in slide-prone Steelhead Haven. 
 
 A collection of stories and visuals about the disaster, why it may have happened and the people it affected. 
 
 Rescuers Monday found six more bodies in a milewide swath of mud and debris that plunged from a Snohomish County hillside, as reports of those still missing jumped to 176. 
 
 So far, 14 people have been confirmed dead after the massive mudslide came down from above the North Fork of the Stillaguamish River, crossed over it, plowed through homes and onto Highway 530 about 11 a.m. Saturday. 
 
 Search conditions are dismal. Crews have at times been kept from the area out of fear more of the cliff above might crumble. And when they can look, “in areas it’s like quicksand. Sometimes it takes five minutes to walk 40 or 50 feet and get our equipment over these berms,” said Travis Hots, chief of Snohomish County Fire Districts 21 and 22. 
 
 The National Guard is expected to arrive early Tuesday to aid the search. 
 
 As the search progressed, the names of the missing reported to authorities increased dramatically. 
 
 Sunday, there were reports of 18 people missing. Monday morning, John Pennington, who heads the county’s Department of Emergency Management, said they were sorting through a list of 108 reports, with obvious duplicates removed. By Monday evening, that number had reached 176. 
 
 Pennington said that sounds discouraging, but he emphasized that some reports are vague and it is likely there are several about the same person. He encouraged people to continue calling in with names, photos and descriptions of people who might have been in the mudslide’s path. 
 
 “Candidly, the 176 names ... I believe very strongly is not going to be a number that we’re going to see in fatalities. I believe it’s going to drop dramatically,” Pennington said. “But it doesn’t make the process any easier.” 
 
 Rescuers Monday used aircraft, hovercraft, heat-sensing equipment and dogs to look through mud 20 feet deep in places and contaminated by chemicals and bacteria. “It’s very tedious and slow-going,” Hots said. 
 
 They are working in areas where there are most likely to be survivors, such as in houses and cars. 
 
 “When we do find a void space, it’s difficult to search because buildings have been collapsed and crushed,” Hots said. He said the mud is so compressed in houses that it’s like concrete. 
 
 Pennington said there are 59 vacant lots in the slide area, and 49 more lots had structures — meaning a house, a cabin or some type of possible dwelling. Of all the structures, 25 were likely occupied full-time. 
 
 Dayn Brunner, after fighting the urge to dig through the mudslide wreckage Sunday, gave in to the temptation Monday along with his sons, brothers, cousins and friends. His sister, Summer Raffo, 36, is missing somewhere in the mud. “I can’t stay at home not doing anything,” Brunner said. 
 
 He said officials told them they had to leave, but they refused. “They said just be careful and call us if you need us.” 
 
 Other family members and friends of the missing gathered in the nearby towns of Darrington and Arlington, awaiting news and talking about loved ones. Often, they spoke in the past tense. 
 
 Nobody has been found alive in the debris since Saturday. 
 
 “Most of us in these communities believe that we will not find any individuals alive,” Pennington said Monday evening. “But I’m a man of faith, and I believe in miracles.” 
 
 Still, he said, “we are moving toward a recovery operation” rather than a rescue. 
 
 Hope gone 
 
 Pete Bellomo, of Bellevue, spent the day in Arlington, trying to find out any information about his daughter, Shelley, and her longtime partner, Jerry Logan. He did not hold out hope they would be found alive. 
 
 “No, no, I don’t think there’s any chance of that ... but I haven’t been informed of anything yet,” he said. 
 
 Shelley Bellomo, 54, “loved living by that river,” where she could watch the bald eagles flying by, her father said. 
 
 “It was a beautiful location. I never thought [a mudslide] could fall all the way across 530,” he said. 
 
 Logan was “an all-around handyman” who helped one neighbor build a barn and installed a deck for another, Pete Bellomo said. 
 
 Also missing is 13-year-old Jovon Mangual, his half-sisters Kaylee Spillers, 5, and Brooke Spillers, 2, and his stepfather, Billy Spillers. 
 
 The children’s mother, Jonielle Spillers, a nursing assistant, and Jovon’s 4-year-old half-brother, Jacob Spillers, are alive. 
 
 The Spillers moved from Seattle to Oso about two years ago, said Jovon’s father, Jose Mangual, a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army. 
 
 Billy Spillers, a chief petty officer in the Navy, is stationed at Naval Station Everett and the family liked Oso “because it was more countrylike and they liked the house,” Mangual said. 
 
 Billy Spillers and the children were apparently watching TV when the mudslide happened, according to Mangual, who said he spoke with Jacob about what happened. The boy said he’d been on the second floor. 
 
 “Jacob told me he got out when nobody else was able to get out,” Mangual said. 
 
 Jonielle Spillers was working when she learned of the slide. Blocked from reaching home because of the slide, she called hospitals, which is how she found Jacob. 
 
 Thomas Durnell, 65, was at his Oso home when it was destroyed by the slide. 
 
 Deb Durnell, his wife, was working Saturday morning and is safe, according to her daughter, Pam Keller. 
 
 Carrie Milburn, a friend of the couple, said they moved there after marrying in 2010. 
 
 Seth and Christina Jefferds have lived in their house in Oso for years . 
 
 Seth Jefferds, a volunteer firefighter, was not home at the time of the slide and arrived to find his house flattened and his wife and her 4-month-old granddaughter, Sanoah Huestis, missing, said his brother-in-law, Dale Petersen. 
 
 Sanoah Huestis lived with Christina and Seth Jefferds. 
 
 Sanoah is just “a very, very cute child,” said Seth’s father, Peter Jefferds. 
 
 He described Christina Jefferds as “very charismatic, loving. A great woman.” 
 
 Northwest Smile Design, a dental office in Marysville where Christina Jefferds worked, posted on its website Monday that she and Sanoah Huestis had died, calling her “a steadying and calming force in times of stress ... a true friend.” 
 
 Nichole Webb Rivera said she frantically called and texted her parents, her daughter and her daughter’s fiance when the massive hillside collapsed. 
 
 Rivera said her parents, Thom and Marcy Satterlee, lived in the center of the slide, and she doesn’t think they made it out. She said her 20-year-old daughter, Delaney Webb, and Webb’s fiance were visiting the older couple at the time. 
 
 Rivera lives in Houston but traveled to Washington after the slide. She said Monday: “We’ve lost four.” 
 
 Seven people injured in the slide were being treated at area hospitals Monday. 
 
 At Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, 22-week-old Duke Suddarth was in critical condition but improving. His mom, Amanda Skorjanc, 25, was in satisfactory condition. 
 
 Three men, ages 81, 58 and 37, were all in serious condition there, though their names were not released. 
 
 At Cascade Valley Hospital in Arlington, one woman was in satisfactory condition. Skagit Valley Hospital in Mount Vernon reported a 68-year-old man was in stable condition. 
 
 Monday night, Darrington Mayor Dan Rankin said the closed Mountain Loop Highway, which connects Darrington to the outside world from the north, could reopen Tuesday or Wednesday. It has been closed for the winter. 
 
 Times staff reporters Alexa Vaughn, Janet Tu, Bob Young, Lynn Thompson, John Higgins, Erik Lacitis, Brian M. Rosenthal and Nancy Bartley contributed to this report. Information from The Associated Press is included in this report. 
 
 Four weeks for 99 cents of unlimited digital access to The Seattle Times. Try it now! ||||| Footage released of US mudslide rescue 
 
 Updated: 04:41, Thursday March 27, 2014 
 
 Dramatic footage has been released of the moment a four-year-old boy was rescued from the mudslide in Washington state that has left at least 24 people dead. 
 
 Jacob Spillers is seen being attended to by rescuers who have flown in on a helicopter just hours after thousands of tons of mud flattened dozens of houses in Oso. 
 
 He was one of only two people in his family to survive after his house took a direct hit. 
 
 His stepbrother, father and two other siblings are still missing. His mother who was not at the house and survived. 
 
 Sixteen people were confirmed dead on Tuesday. Emergency services said overnight that they had located what they thought was another eight bodies, increasing the death toll. 
 
 As many as 176 others are missing but authorities do not know whether they are people who have not been in touch, or are under the debris. 
 
 Residents of a nearby town of Darrington have now been allowed to help emergency services comb through the wreckage. 
 
 Emergency workers have been using dogs and specialist electronic equipment to try to find survivors and bodies. 
 
 Their search has been hampered by the weather and the sheer amount of debris, much of which can only be removed by hand, in one of the worst such disasters in the United States. 
 
 'Unfortunately, we did not find any signs of life today, we didn't locate anybody alive, so that's the disappointing part,' Snohomish County fire district chief Travis Hots said. 
 
 He said the emergency operation was still focused on finding survivors as well as recovering bodies. 
 
 'We haven't lost hope that there's a possibility that we can find someone,' he said. 
 
 The mudslide smashed through the small community, about 55 miles (90km) north of Seattle, on Saturday morning. 
 
 Mr Hots said some 50 more searchers had been brought in to sift through the disaster zone in hopes of a miracle. 
 
 'This makes up over 200 responders that are here on site working very hard to locate victims and hopefully find somebody that is still alive. That is still our number-one priority out there,' he said. 
 
 Around 30 homes were destroyed and dozens more damaged as much of the riverside village was swept away. Eight people were injured. 
 
 The torrent of mud was unleashed after the hillside above the village became saturated by rain. 
 
 Reports suggest that authorities may have known about the potential for deadly landslides in the area. 
 
 A 2010 report commissioned by Snohomish County found that some neighbourhoods were at especially high risk because of the gradient of the hills and the soil type, according to the Seattle Times. 
 
 President Barack Obama has signed an emergency declaration ordering US government assistance to add to state and local relief efforts in the area. 
 
 'We hope for the best, but we recognise this is a tough situation,' he said. 
 
 The disaster already ranks as one of the deadliest landslides in recent US history. 
 
 In 2005, 10 people died when a hillside gave way and engulfed homes in La Conchita, California. ||||| Stunning video emerged Wednesday of a 4-year-old boy plucked from the muck by a helicopter rescue team in the aftermath of the devastating mudslide that pulverized a rural community in Washington. 
 
 Jacob Spillers was saved Saturday after being trapped in the mud that destroyed dozens of homes and killed at least 16 people. Rescuers believe they have also spotted the bodies of eight victims of the Saturday landslide. 
 
 The boy was at home with his father, Billy Spillers, and three siblings when the mudslide tore through Oso, a town 55 miles northeast of Seattle. Jacob is the only known survivor of the group. 
 
 Jacob Spillers, 4, was rescued from the mudslide in Oso, Wash., on Saturday. This photo was taken on July 7, 2012. 
 
 Up to 176 people remain missing in the wake of the mud wave. 
 
 Search crews continued the grim task of rescue and recovery Wednesday, wading through the mess of earth, trees, ice and foul waste water as hopes dimmed of finding survivors. Emergency workers used search dogs, bulldozers and bare hands to slog through the square-mile debris field. 
 
 (L-R): Kaylee Spillers, baby Brooke Spillers, Jacob Spillers (wearing blue), Jovon Spillers, father Billy Spillers, mother Jonielle Spillers. Up until Saturday, only Jacob and Jonielle were known to be safe after Saturday's mudslide in Washington. Snohomish County Helicopter Rescue Team The 4-year-old boy, Jacob Spillers, was trapped in the mud after the landslide destroyed his family’s Oso home on Saturday. Central Pierce Fire and Rescue The little boy survived the deadly disaster, but authorities were still searching for his father and three siblings. Marcus Yam/AP Authorities said they are searching for up to 176 people who have been missing since the mudslide swept through the rural town about 55 miles northeast of Seattle on Saturday. Previous Next 
 
 
 
 
 
 Enlarge 
 
 Authorities said some victims may be left entombed in the treacherous terrain because attempts to recover every body would be dangerous. 
 
 With News Wire Services 
 
 jkemp@nydailynews.com
– Positive news is hard to come by when it comes to the mudslide that wiped out a Washington state community, but footage is making the rounds today of a helicopter crew rescuing a 4-year-old boy from the muddy wreckage. Jacob Spillers was home with his two sisters, age 5 and 2, his stepfather, and his 13-year-old half-brother when the slide hit. The home was destroyed, and all were trapped inside, according to the Seattle Times. Everyone except Jacob is still missing; the boy escaped because he was on the second floor. "Jacob told me he got out when nobody else was able to get out," his half-brother's father says. Jacob's mother, however, is alive and well, because she wasn't home at the time. The footage was shot Saturday, the day the slide hit; no survivors have been found in the days since. Other heartbreaking tales from survivors: Gary "Mac" McPherson, 81, survived the landslide—even as it claimed his wife of 46 years, Linda, who was sitting right next to him, the LA Times reports. McPherson says he awoke sitting in the same chair, now crushed, with a ceiling beam across his lap, his house having been pushed 150 yards away. "He was able to dig a hole and see the sky," his daughter says. "The whole time, he was calling for my mom ... but she never responded." US Navy Cmdr. L. John Regelbrugge III's body was found by his two brothers yesterday morning, his sister-in-law tells the Seattle Times. The 32-year veteran's remains were alongside his dog's. "His brother Greg put a work shirt over him. They said he had massive injuries, so at least he didn't suffer." His wife was found a short time later.