Renton Neighborhood Covered In Mud
Some homes are in danger after the hillside above came crashing down.
There is still a lot of water coming off the slope above. Several homes could be in danger and two have been evacuated in case there are more slides.
King County road crews are using the big shovels of their heavy equipment, while neighbors are using little ones, but they're all trying to move a small mountain of mud. What's now a big yard of mud used to be a storm water retention pond, but early Friday morning, the hillside above gave way.
"Oh man, it was loud thunder, it sounded like thunder at first," says Lisa Carpenter. It woke her from a sound sleep, and then she heard the water out front.
"And I thought, 'that's awfully close,' ... and then, right then I knew something was wrong with the retention pond here."
The landslide came right up to Nikki Thach's back door.
"I was just horrified, I didn't know if I should stay in the house or if I should leave, I mean I don't know what's going to happen," she said.
King County hydrologists aren't sure what's going to happen either. There's still so much water saturating the slopes, it may be building new dams above -- dams that can, and eventually will break and release a new onslaught of water, mud and debris.
"Oh I'm very nervous," says Carpenter, "very nervous, especially if it keeps damming up, up there."
With that danger in mind, the county has red-tagged two homes. Building Inspector Lee Sundquist tells homeowner John Hertel he'll have to leave: "Thanks for being a good sport and leaving your house, I'm sorry this is happening."
The residents will have to leave for at least a couple of days while the county re-evaluates the risk. Hertel says, "It was just raining and raining and raining and slowly but surely the mud came through, woke up this morning like, 'surprise!' "
For the moment, the county doesn't believe any of the rest of the homes down below are in any danger, other than having a major clean up job. But they have put warning notices on 10 homes on the slopes above. And they're going to keep a close eye on this area in case conditions change.