Thom Satterlee, a local community activist, attempted to lead an effort to secede from Snohomish County. He didn’t like the land use restrictions and many other things dished out by local government. One has to wonder how that worked out for him in the past couple of days. Thom and his wife are among the missing in the giant landslide in Washington State.
Among those missing in the landslide that devastated a small Washington community is the leader of a group that sought to secede from Snohomish County over land-rights issues, including whether government could restrict property owners from building in risky or environmentally sensitive areas like the one buried by the slide.
Thom Satterlee, 65, and his wife, Marlese, 61, both are missing from their home in the community of Oso in the wake of Saturday’s landslide, which spewed tons of mud and debris over homes scattered along the Stillaquamish River. A daughter, Andrea Hulme, did not respond to an interview request from NBC News, but a message on her answering machine said, “My parents are missing in the mudslide.”
Snohomish County officials were well acquainted with Thom Satterlee, a leader of a polarizing movement to secede and establish a new “Freedom County” that began in the mid-1990s.
By the time it petered out in the late 2000s, Satterlee and his fellow secessionists had announced their independence from Snohomish County (based on a petition that drew more than 12,000 signatures), appointed a sheriff (a former FBI agent who legally changed his name to “Fnu Lnu”) and demanded that Snohomish officials halt governance of the roughly 1,000-square-mile area that they claimed as their own.
Meanwhile, these small towns about 50 miles north of Seattle, have pulled together in amazing ways, as many of those in the community continue to do search and rescue duty, looking for lost loved ones and family pets.
Do people even know what is hitting them? How could anyone ever prepare for such a thing? If you found out tomorrow that you lived on a fault line or a potential mud slide area, would you just up and leave? How do you morally even sell your house? Hell, I didn’t even have a tree that was too close to the house taken down until recently. The bad winter and the loss of 2 other trees prompted me.
For those of you who do not know the Puget Sound area, I recommend a visit. I have an adult child, a sibling and nephews who live in the Seattle area, and I wouldn’t be reluctant to relocate to the Bellingham area when I retire. The slide area is about halfway between Seattle and Bellingham (which is virtually on the Canadian border). The landscape is absolutely beautiful, but the Cascades are seismically/volcanically active, you’re near the border of major tectonic plates, the weather can be extreme (wind and rain mostly, snow at higher elevations), the tides and currents are dramatic (important for sailing buffs like me), and the high latitudes make for some long winter nights. But when the sun shines, it’s hard to imagine a more inspiring landscape.
Many of the folks who settled in and around Oso did so of necessity – they could find work there. A few elected to do so in retirement. But the land is very active in a way that we Virginians don’t really appreciate. The Post this morning had an article about the geology of the mudslide. Reading it you had to wonder what people possibly could be thinking to position a house or a settlement right in the path of a previous slide.
Maybe people should be interested in a development a little closer to home, umm the Cherry Hill Peninsula or its most recent name Harbor Station. Not suggesting there will be an accident like this mudslide, but they are building homes in areas that are steep slopes and environmentally very sensitive.
The sea might reclaim what it hers?? Well, the Potomac….
Somebody should call that sherif Fnu Lnu and report his missing constituents, hahaha!
@Scout
What a strange, wild untamed area! I love it in the summer. I don’t think I would care much for it in winter.
I have friends on the southern coast of Washington around the Long Beach/Ocean Park area, on the peninsula. they get 60-80 mph winds several times a year. I keep telling them that trees like that simply don’t have the root structure or the trunk strength/flexibility to sustain those kinds of winds. I don’t think they believe me. I have lost trees at sustained 30 mph winds.
Imagine heading for the hills every time a tsunami warning went off.
Then there was Mt. St. Helens. The devastation is still extremely clear and obvious, over 30 years later.
Scout is right. We here in Virginia can’t even relate.
Then there is the mouth of the Columbia River. Supposedly those are some of the most dangerous waters on earth.
How about the libertarian types who don’t want government interference? What would the families say?