Hoquiam works to open road for people trapped by mudslide

HOQUIAM, Wash. — The city of Hoquiam is working hard to clear a logging road for one lane travel in and out of the Beacon Hill neighborhood after a mudslide trapped residents.

It was supposed to open from 7 a.m. until 4 p.m. Tuesday, but the road needs more gravel so the people who live there can get out.

Some four-wheel drive vehicles were allowed passage during a brief window Monday night, but most people who live at the top of the cliff remain trapped.  Their paved road, Beacon Hill Drive, is blocked by slide debris.

Down below, we met two long-time neighbors, crying on each other’s shoulders.

"Just never thought something like this would happen, not in my time anyway,” Debbie Johnson told us, pointing to the collapsed cliff behind a row of homes on Queets.

What a difference five feet makes.  Johnson's house was untouched by the powerful slide, but Cynthia Schmid’s, which is right next door, was destroyed.   She came back today to try to coax her two cats out and grab what she could -- a backpack, her son's guitar -- both close enough to the entryway she could grab them without going inside.

“The hallway --  you can't get through there, the kitchen you can't get through there,” she said, describing how unstable the structure felt when she tried to.

Schmid says she won't rebuild here; Debbie says she doesn't want to come back here.  Both women are trapped by fear while their neighbors above are just trapped.

"Every little sound I hear now, you know, somebody starts up the pickup and I hear it and I think the hill is coming down, it just scared me so bad,” Schmid explained.

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