Tim Ward returned to Oso this week for the first time in eight years and saw a post with blue signs that pointed to the directions where the houses used to be.
At the top was his: 30801. It was the address for his house, the first one on the right coming around the corner, where he lived with his wife, Brandy, their five dogs and a coop of chickens. Life was good.
The house is gone now, destroyed in the Oso landslide that killed Brandy and 42 other people when a fallen hillside tore through the Steelhead Haven neighborhood on March 22, 2014. In its place is a former debris field that, for the first time, has a permanent memorial for the victims of the disaster — and for the community that came together in the aftermath.
“We now have a place to come to spend time with those that we loved and lost,” said Ward, who was rescued from his home. “But more important, it’s a place to bring those that maybe don’t remember at all, and share with them the love that you have, not only for the community, but for the lifestyle, the love that people had.”
The memorial formally opened Friday, 10 years after the slide destroyed the Snohomish County neighborhood.
The SR 530 Slide Memorial opened with a dedication ceremony, which included a moment of silence at 10:37 a.m., the exact time the hillside gave way. The $5 million tribute off Highway 530 is a sprawling, 4-acre site that takes visitors through the history of the neighborhood, the specifics of the disaster, the efforts of the first responders and the lives of the people who were rescued or killed.
“Today marks 10 years. Ten years. Seems like yesterday, doesn’t it?” Dayn Brunner, whose sister, Summer Rafo, died in the landslide, said during the ceremony. “I made a solemn promise to my sister and anyone and anything that would listen that I would honor and remember her on this day. Forty-three lives ripped from us … We are still picking up the pieces. It is still too raw for us, even after a decade.”
Brunner was among the core group of victims’ relatives who have advocated for years for a permanent site beyond the 43 trees planted off Highway 530 six months after the slide.
John Hadaway called the efforts among his highest highs and lowest lows since his brother, Steve Hadaway, was killed in the landslide. Figuring out how to fund the project, and occasionally where to cut costs, sometimes felt like taking his family member away again, Hadaway recalled.
“We were planning these galas and fundraisers, then we actually sat down and figured out the total cost … it was like someone hit you in the back of the head with a two-by-four,” he said last month. “Holy Moses, you can go out and raise $20,000-$30,000, then find out it costs millions and millions of dollars. It was devastating.”
In 2021, the Snohomish County Council approved $4.8 million for the project as part of its 2022 budget, and construction began in October 2022.
“When we had that meeting, oh my gosh, I couldn’t even speak,” Hadaway said. “I just cried. I just cried.”
The memorial includes multiple sections of sculptures created by Seattle artist Tsovinar Muradyan, who has a background in architecture. The section for first responders, for example, has sculptures of a chain saw, hard hats and boots, and badges of dozens of responding agencies set in stone.
Muradyan made 26 steel panels, one for each family of victims, that were customized by relatives.
The panel for Christina Jefferds and her 4-month-old granddaughter, Sanoah Huestis, has an engraving of Winnie the Pooh and Piglet walking together, accompanied by a quote: “If there ever comes a day when we can’t be together keep me in your heart, I’ll stay there forever.”
Tom Durnell’s has an LP outline at the top of his panel, for his massive record collection. The panel for Ron DeQuilettes, who was born in the Netherlands, includes a windmill.
Muradyan said she hopes the memorial can inspire hope for family members.
“If you have lost your loved ones, there is nothing you can do,” she said. “You have to go forward and keep that light in your heart. This is a place of hope and light.”
Gov. Jay Inslee said the prevailing feeling at the time of the slide was uncertainty as emergency responders worked to understand the scope of the debris field and damage. It was difficult for him to wrap his head around the disaster, he recalled.
The state has learned a lot about landslides and landslide prevention since the Oso slide, Inslee said, pointing to laser-created lidar maps. Geologists with the state Department of Natural Resources have mapped approximately 34,000 slides over the past decade, though they’ve pinpointed past landslides in only 14% of the state.
Washington residents live with the threats of disaster, Inslee said — the state is geologically active, and somewhere in the future is a big earthquake.
“It’s part of our nature, it’s part of our culture,” he said. “… and when tragedy happens, we pull together. And that’s what happened this time.”
Working toward a memorial has been a form of therapy for Hadaway, who said he promised his brother that he would see its creation to the end. And the work doesn’t stop just because the memorial has opened.
“It has to be maintained, it’s not going to be forgotten,” Hadaway said. “The grass is going to get overgrown? Absolutely not. Not as long as I have breath.”
In the gathering plaza of the memorial site, a steel sculpture towers more than 18 feet and has outlines of 43 butterflies of different sizes, one for each victim. The beams are situated so that on March 22, at 10:37 a.m., sun shines through in a specific way.
This March 22 was cloudy, but had the sun shone through, it would have hit a boulder, illuminating the engraving: “Hope is seeing the light despite the darkness.”
