WSDOT determining future of SR 530 following Oso mudslide

It’s not going to be easy or fast. But the Washington State Department of Transportation is working on a plan to get highway 530 open again.

In the search for victims of the mudslide, that struck the small community of Oso on the Saturday morning of March 22, the death toll has reached 36. Seven people are still missing.

Mud and debris from the massive slide still covers SR 530. The first talks about reopening highway 530 started this week in Arlington and Darrington.

Travis Phelps, spokesman for WSDOT, said first they’re meeting with families who lost loved ones in the tragedy. “This is sacred ground to a lot of folks out there because of the number of people that lost their lives in the landslide, so it’s us reaching out to them.”

Phelps said his team will also be asking community members how they want them to treat the area, and find out what they envision the new alignment of tje 530 corridor looking like.

“There is an awful lot of mudslide debris on the roadway. This isn’t going to be a quick process so we want to make sure that we’re engaged in the community step by step, but also getting information from them,” said Phelps.

The slide changed the geography of the Stillaguamish Valley, and WSDOT is doing their homework on how the slide has changed the landscape and how to approach it, according to Phelps.

The department of transportation is also working on safe, alternate routes that the community can use until SR 530 is back in commission. Right now it takes almost two hours to get from Arlington to Darrington on the sometimes-one-lane Mountain Loop Highway.

KIRO Radio’s Jillian Raftery and MyNorthwest.com’s Alyssa Kleven contributed to this report.