Expert: Erosion on satellite photo not a factor in slide

by CHRIS INGALLS / KING 5 News

KING5.com

Posted on March 28, 2014 at 5:47 PM

Updated yesterday at 8:46 PM

Does a Google satellite photo show damage to the slope that gave way causing Saturdays Oso landslide?

A University of Washington professor says, after talking with the people who built a retaining wall at the base of the slope, he no longer thinks it was a factor in the slide.

Im probably pretty confident now that it was not a contributing factor, geologist Dave Montgomery told KING 5 on Friday.

The day before, Montgomery said that the image could show evidence that the Stillaguamish river was undermining the slope.

The image, photographed by a Google Earth satellite in July of 2013, clearly shows the log revetment," a retaining wall built by the Stillaguamish Tribe to keep sediments from the unstable hillside from harming salmon runs in the river.

At the northwest end of the wooden wall there is a jumble of logs and a crescent shape gap where the river appears to have cut into the slope.

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Expert: Erosion on satellite photo not a factor in slide