Beneath steep slope, Concrete neighbors fear landslides from logging above

CONCRETE — A hillside rises 1,300 feet within less than a mile, right behind 83 homes known as Sauk River Estates.

If a logging company carries out its plans to cut 54 acres on this steep slope this summer, residents fear their neighborhood could become another Steelhead Haven, where 43 people died in the devastating Oso landslide in 2014. Sauk River Estates is only 26 miles away from remnants of the 650-foot-tall hill in Oso, along Highway 530 — and 10 miles away from Snohomish County lines.

It is hard to say if landslides have ravaged near this Concrete community before, as they did around Oso decades before the tragedy. State geologists haven’t mapped historic landslides in Skagit County yet.

In Sauk River Estates, bigleaf maples, Western redcedars and Douglas firs shade a stretch of homes and trailers along a single gravel road called Mountain View Lane, bordered with bleeding hearts, nettle and salmonberries.

https://www.heraldnet.com/news/beneath-steep-slope-concrete-neighbors-fear-landslides-from-logging-above/