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Landslides and Flooding Investigation

Thu, 01/03/2008 - 10:09am — ladyisabelle

There is a new website about the local landslides and flooding. It is still being updated and we will try and get the Stillman Creek and Boistfort Valley information up soon. If you have any pictures you would like to submit, specifically of flooding or landslides, please email them to me at isabelle.sarikhan (at) wadnr [dot] gov

With your permission (and please state so in the email), we will post your picture. Please provide a location and short description, also your name as you wish it to appear on the website. If you have any questions or comments to improve the website, please get in contact with me. We are trying to reach out to the community to help document and understand this disaster to help mitigate and prepare for future hazards.

Website here.

Comments

Thu, 01/03/2008 - 12:45pm — Robert Whitlock

That picture looks makes it

That picture looks makes it look like Mother Nature is trying to mount a return to wilderness campaign.
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Thu, 01/03/2008 - 4:14pm — emmettoconnell

Well, yeah

Mother nature is a "return to wilderness" campaign. All the time!
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full disclosure

Thu, 01/03/2008 - 11:37pm — Mike

It's troubling that the DNR website has pictures like this:

of the landslide out near Pe Ell because the logged off hillside and the slide suggest that logging has something to with land movement and anybody who has worked in the woods or in a mill (I have worked in both) knows that the stumps will hold the soil and the absence of large timber in the sliding mud actually reduces the damage that the slide would otherwise cause. 

 

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"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." President Dwight D. Eisenhower April 16, 195

Thu, 01/03/2008 - 11:42pm — Robert Whitlock

using that logic

it seems we would be safer if we cut down all the trees that are on hills.
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Fri, 01/04/2008 - 12:11am — Mike

we're trying to

I have a lot of trouble going back out in the woods now because so many pretty places I once knew have been logged off.  And even if it is done well, and the replanted trees take off in a way that warms the cockles of a forester's heart, the beauty and diversity and magic of an old growth forest does not come back for a long time. 

I made a living for a few years walking in the old growth.  It was beautiful, but my being there was part of the process that led to the disappearance of old growth and I don't think it was right livelihood.  I don't think I thought it was right livelihood 25 years ago when I did it, but I had children that I loved who wanted to be fed and clothed, so I walked lines, and set cutting ribbons and bent roads to leave the grandfather trees out of the right of way when I could.

It's kind of like the Heisenberg principle or the moral of the movie "never cry wolf"  the act of seeing these beautiful areas contributed their disappearance, so now I leave the wild places and the wild things alone.  If I catch a glimpse of them, I look away.  I don't think we are supposed to look long and hard at the wild.  

My post above was satire, but I have heard that argument provided as the truth as some folks see it.   I am conflicted about it. 

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"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." President Dwight D. Eisenhower April 16, 195

Fri, 01/04/2008 - 2:20am — Robert Whitlock

clearcutting

I think clearcutting is destructive also. However, I think it's okay to stare long and hard at wilderness and nature. Wilderness is beautiful and it deserves to be appreciated in its own right.

I wish we could change our practices so that our demand for forest products became so we could do the most minimally invasive selective harvesting of trees. One here one there, and the impact would be greatly lessened in comparison to clear cutting.
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Sat, 01/05/2008 - 10:29am — Mike

Agreed on harvest.

Have you watched "Never Cry Wolf" recently?   I suggest that you watch it and think hard about the message at the end, where the wolf studier gives up the study, the staring long and hard at wilderness and nature, as he realizes that he need to be the wild person that he is, and to leave the other wild things alone, to let them go and not watch them go.

The message I get from watching that movie exceeds my ability to articulate. I think you will get that message in its depth if you watch it now and think again about your ideas about whether it's ok to stare long and hard at wilderness and nature. 

Namaste,  Rob. 

And thanks to Isabelle for posting this here.  Despite my satirical response, I think it's time to stop seeing forest as a commodity.  There may be commodities that we can harvest from forests, but the harvest must be gentle enough that when we are done, the area still looks like forest. 

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"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." President Dwight D. Eisenhower April 16, 195

Fri, 01/04/2008 - 9:12am — ladyisabelle

Troubling???

Well, luckily we are in the Washington State Geological Survey, which is still part of DNR, but we are trying to analyze the facts and not trying to hide them. The hill was recently clear cut and we have to consider that a potential factor as to why it failed.
Fri, 01/04/2008 - 12:42pm — Robert Whitlock

I'm with you

I think that rooted stumps would be less effective than rooted trees (amongst a forest) at preventing landslides.

Not to say a healthy living forest will prevent landslides. But I think it would be more effective at preventing landslides than stumps (even though they still have roots.)

A couple reasons might be that: Living roots are growing and have tendrils that will work to hold soil more effectively. The forest canopy also would help to lessen the degrading impact of heavy rains upon the soil.
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Fri, 01/04/2008 - 12:55pm — ladyisabelle

Rooting Strength

Rooting strength of cut trees (stumps) gradually declines for about 7 to 10 years (which is usually when we observe more landslides). The thing to consider is that when the canopy of the trees are removed, you have a greater amount of rain striking the exposed soil and create a greater amount of overland flow. Further, as was recognized in the last turn of the century (1900), removing the tree canopy melts the snow pack faster. During the storm event on December 3rd, where warm tropical rains rapidly melted snow, in areas where snow was exposed (removed canopy, i.e. clearcuts) we would expect to see a more rapid snow melt. In our observations (we are still looking at the data), it appears that these areas were particularly vulnerable to landslides. As to how all of this triggers landslides, we are still investigation that. This storm event was a bit out of the norm.
Sat, 01/05/2008 - 10:53am — Mike

Storms outside the norm are becoming the norm.

Isabelle, I will direct your attention to this report by those environmental radicals at the World Bank. Here are some excerpts: 

Development Actions and the Rising Incidence of Disasters
 
Which Disasters Are the Fastest Growing Problem?
While natural disasters are increasing overall, as noted above, two types—flooding and wind torms— are increasing much more rapidly than
the others (figure 1-3).

Their number is increasing dramatically, with an annual average increase of at least 5 percent. To some degree the two types of events go hand in hand. Tropical storms can cause flooding, and flooding is frequently triggered by unusually heavy rains — which are not always from “named” storms. And not only are tropical storm disasters
up; extreme weather events (that is, unusually heavy rainfalls not caused by  cyclones or hurricanes)8 also are more frequent. Moreover, the damage caused by extreme weather events, flooding, and wind storms has also accelerated.

At some point, when we experience a "hundred year" rainfall/floold every ten years, this flood has to be recognized for what it truly is:  a ten year rainfall/flood event.  Failure to take changes in weather into account when planning land use puts us all at risk.  

This report says the increasing incidence of storms of a certain level severity has increased about four fold in about forty years.  This is just the storm severity, it is not the economic measure based on population growth in dangerous areas, simply nastier, more destructive storm.  The global warming models predict this increasing weather severity.  Droughts, freak snowfalls, heavy rainfalls, windstorms - these are all predicted by the global warming models.   

Based on the global warming science, I will suggest that you are incorrect to state that this storm was a little out of the norm.  I suspect this recent storm was the kind of storm that we will see every ten to twenty years now based on 1996 and 2007 storm events. 

I hope that DNR will plan accordingly, but I am not optimistic that appropriate land-use plans can be developed if they mandate economic impacts related to lower forest harvesting. I also hope I am wrong about that.

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"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." President Dwight D. Eisenhower April 16, 195

Sat, 01/05/2008 - 11:41am — ladyisabelle

A History of Storms

Mike, you make a great point, I think we are in a time where storms will become increasingly frequent and increased in intensity. I think the "hundred year" storm has been used too often and without proper understanding of Washington's storm history. From the written records of European immigrants into this area, strong storms (and flooding) struck the area in 1860, 1861-1862, 1875, 1880, 1892, 1896, 1897, and 1902 (and unfortunately, most of my research was up in Snohomish County, so this might not be the same for Thurston County). There were two very large "rain-on-snow" events, such as the storm we saw on December 3rd, in 1897 and 1902. It is difficult, because of lack of weather monitoring equipment to say if any of these were "hundred year" storms, but in its hayday, I believe the 1897 and the 1902 were considered "hundred year" storm. Further, as records improved and weather stations were monitored, we began to understand that these storms were often extra tropical cyclones, which can cause hurricane force winds and high precipitation. One of the largest storms to hit in Washington history was the Great Gale in 1880. Records are a bit skimp on this event, but continuing on with large storms, we have a large storm on January of 1921, a massive windstorm, probably equivalent to the Columbus Day Storm of 1962 and the Hanukkah Eve Wind Storm of 2006 brought wind gusts estimated at more than 100 miles per hour. The 1921 storm winds were strong enough to topple large stands of old growth trees, with shallow rooted and top-heavy trees, such as spruce and hemlock, being most vulnerable. An estimated three to seven billion board feet of old growth timber was reported to be blown down, causing the storm to be named “The Great Blowdown”. Not until the Columbus Day storm has any storm caused so much damage to forests by blowdown. As the tally of downed timber is being assessed from the December 3rd, 2007 storm, I imagine (seeing this by plane) that we will see downed timber at least equivalent, if not exceeding, these events. So, these events are frequent in our history. You can look up more of on these storms from a much more qualified expert at: http://ocs.oce.orst.edu/storm_king_site/index.html Also, if you are interested in how DNR is looking towards the future of timber harvest, you might want to look at this: http://www.dnr.wa.gov/forestpractices/lhzproject/ It is the one of the tools DNR is trying to implement timber harvest. I have some things to say about this project, but not in a public forum. Luckily, my job at DNR is not in timber harvest, so I couldn't say how DNR is planning accordingly. Our job in the Washington State Geological Survey is to try and keep the public educated and prepared for natural disasters, such as landslides, earthquakes, tsunamis, etc. We try to stick to facts and to minimize politics as much as possible.
Sat, 01/05/2008 - 12:13pm — ladyisabelle

Out of the Norm

I forgot to mention, the reason I thought this was out of the norm (and being no weather expert), we had a trio of storms hit, which dumped tons of snow in the mountains right before melting it all, which I think had an interesting impact on landslides. That was out of the norm (landslide wise) from what I had read about for storms in the past. The 1996 storm, I believe, was a "Pineapple Express" with no large snow storm in front of it. But, your right, generally, this storm is not that out of the norm, it just made for some interesting, perhaps unique, landslide events. On my geologic mind, the landslides triggered from this event, on casual observation, appear in areas that had significant snow (as to what this is in inches we cannot say yet) combined with a places that had intense rainfall, so mostly Lewis, Thurston, and Mason Co (where the most intense rain fell). Another thing noted is almost all slides failed on thin soil on bedrock. But, whether this is combined with what type of harvest this might be associated with (clearcut 0-5 years, young timber 5-15 years, mature timber 15-50 years), it is difficult to say right now, we need to analyze the data a bit better and even on casual observation, we are seeing landslides in lands of all timber ages.
Sat, 01/05/2008 - 4:19pm — Mike

Very strong storms in California today

You can read about it here.  Note that I said very strong storms, not very unusual storms. The CA storms happening are certainly very strong, very severe weather.  They may or may not be unusual or out of the norm.
 

Here is what Fernley, Nevada looks like today.  That looks a lot like the Chehalis area looked a month ago. 

What if these kind of storms are now the norm due to global warming?  That seems to be part of the point of the World Bank report.

As long as each disastrous weather is framed as unusual or outside the norm when there is good reason to think that increasing severe weather is now the norm, we are encouraged not to begin taking the steps that we need to take to tackle global warming, the mother of all problems as it was called in the recent movie "Everything's Cool." 

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"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." President Dwight D. Eisenhower April 16, 195