Search underway for three men missing after Colorado mudslide
_http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-colorado-mudslide-20140525,0,5936260.story
Tuesday May 27, 2014 -DENVER (Reuters) - Search and rescue crews were looking for three men on Monday who have been missing since a four-mile-long (6-km) mudslide ripped through a remote area near the Grand Mesa National Forest in western Colorado the day before.
The slide tore through an area outside the mountain community of Collbran, which has a population of about 700 people and is located 200 miles (320 km) west of Denver, said Heather Benjamin, spokeswoman for the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office.
Three people were missing in the incident and the sheriff's office on Monday identified them only as three men. Further details were expected to be released at a press conference on Monday afternoon.
The disaster area was estimated to be about two miles (3 km) wide and about 250 feet (75 meters) deep in places and was described by deputies on the scene being very unstable, the sheriff's office said.
A witness described hearing a sound similar to that of a freight train, which was attributed to the slide, the office said.
A mudslide two months ago buried much of a community in the Cascade foothills of Washington state, killing more than 40 people. County officials said on Thursday that a 42nd set of remains had been recovered from the rubble.
Colorado Mudslide: 3 missing
_http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/26/colorado-mudslide_n_5391031.html
Clancy Nichols, 51, a county road and bridge employee, his son Danny, 24, and Wes Hawkins, 46, have been missing since Sunday after the ridge collapsed. They went to check on damage from an initial slide near the edge of Grand Mesa, one of the world's largest flat-topped mountains, after a rancher reported that his irrigation ditch had stopped flowing, Mesa County Sheriff Stan Hilkey said.
The search near the small town of Collbran has been hampered because only the lower third of the slide is stable. Even at the edges, the mud is 20 to 30 feet deep. It's believed to be several hundred feet deep and about a half mile wide.
"Everyone on this mountain is praying for a miracle right now," Hilkey said.
Deputies estimate that the entire ridge had been moving for most of Sunday before someone called to report the slide at 6:15 p.m., describing it as sounding like a freight train. Hilkey believes runoff from Grand Mesa from recent rain triggered the slide. A hydrologist from the Natural Weather Service and a geologist from the U.S. Geological Survey were helping authorities assess the situation.
Hawkins' cousin, Bill Clark, said he went along with Clancy and Danny Nichols to check on why an irrigation ditch had stopped flowing because he works for an area water district. He said he has a family and young children.
Clark, who visited the canyon where the slide struck, said it was completely filled with mud. He said the slide struck with so much force that some also spilled over into the neighboring draw.
"I've never seen so much earth move like that in my life," he said.
From a distance of about 10 miles, the slide looked like a funnel, narrowing into a culvert below. It cut a giant channel through trees. The creek that once gradually flowed down the ridge now spurted down like a waterfall. Roads in the area, where some cattle grazed, were muddy from rain.
"How in the devil could this happen?" said Collbran resident Lloyd Power, gazing out at the slide.
He said residents were praying for the missing. "That's all we can do," Power said.
While the surrounding area is popular place for fishing, hiking and camping, the slide hit on land with an access gate that isn't open to the public. No one else is believed missing and no homes were damaged.
Energy companies were monitoring oil and gas wells in the area, part of the productive Piceance Basin, but so far the mud has only come up to the edge of one pad operated by Occidental Petroleum Corp. The three wells there have been shut down, said David Ludlam, executive director of the West Slope Colorado Oil & Gas Association, a trade group.
Hilkey said he'd received a telephone call from authorities in Washington state, where a March 22 landslide swept a square mile of dirt, sand and silt through a neighborhood in Oso, about an hour northeast of Seattle. That slide leveled homes and killed at least 43 people.
