# Avalanche destroys Missoula MT House, snowboarders implicated



## Soul06 (Dec 18, 2010)

I'm happy to hear that everyone survived but I have questions about this "snowboarders believed to be responsible" and them being questioned by cops. Maybe I'm reading too much into it but unless they are saying the snowboarders set up the snow themselves to avalanche then why are they even being mentioned?


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## slyder (Jan 18, 2010)

Again, I have "zero" mountain knowledge.

1st glad everyone made it out. 

This is not the first time from the article this has happened. How can you blame people on the hill for an avalanche. Yes they may have helped trigger it but from the tone of the article this was a tragedy waiting to happen with all the snow they already have. Would this have happened naturally a 12 hrs later, a day a week? 

Who builds a subdivision in the path of this type of terrain. 

Is this the same as those that live on the coast and have to deal with hurricanes. If you choose to live in this terrain/climate this is the risk you take and you can't blame others. You enjoy the great times and the bad times....

Just random thoughts/quesitons


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## CassMT (Mar 14, 2013)

i think the cops probably just took names, etc...in case someone dies, which might change the story entirely...not sure what the status of the land up there is, i think it's NFS

i do know thw house was obliterated, those 3 were lucky as shit...










here's Mt Jumbo overlooking missoula, the rattlesnake neighborhood is right off the left side in this image...


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## KansasNoob (Feb 24, 2013)

1. Build house in avalanche path
2. Blame snowboarders


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## Bones (Feb 24, 2008)

I would tend to believe that anyone who might have witnessed the event would have been interviewed especially if they were near the trigger zone. I didn't get the impression that any blame was being assigned.


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## CassMT (Mar 14, 2013)

yeh i don't think they are being blamed, but i bet they did touch it off...imagine bein gone of those boarders, watching the avalanche go down below them and just smash a house, OoPs! sorry...they should count theyselves lucky too, talk about entrapment zone....


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## CassMT (Mar 14, 2013)

UPDATE

the 68yr old woman, who was trapped for 3 hours, died of her unjuries sunday...damn. her husband ( who happens to have been one of my wife's UofM proffessors back in the day) is still alive in critical condition. the little boy of 8 was realeased, he was trapped 1 hour, amazingly, jammed up agin a fence in a pocket of air.

Mount Jumbo: Air pockets saved 3 buried when 120 mph avalanche hit

and there is this, seems to be the smoking gun pretty much:



> *A snowboarder likely triggered the slide near the summit of Jumbo, which was primed for trouble by a mid-week warm spell followed by the first serious blizzard Missoula had experienced since 1997.
> “All it was waiting for was a trigger, and we got that with the snowboarder,” said West Central Montana Avalanche Center director Steve Karkanen. “He was on a slab probably 2 or 3 feet deep. It collapsed with a whoomp and he started to go for a ride. He got caught in it for a while, but got free.”*


and



> *“We heard this huge whump,” neighbor Cheryl McMillan said of the 4 p.m. incident. “At first we thought it was just snow falling off the roof. But it was also more like a roar. It didn’t last very long.”
> Cheryl’s son Caleb looked up the Mount Jumbo slope and saw a snowboarder walking down, carrying his board. Looking farther, he noticed the Allendorf house was gone.*




they estimate the avalanche hit the house at 120mph










i doubt they will charge the kid, imo a horrible accident, general stupidity, but not criminal


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## speedjason (May 2, 2013)

still pretty stupid building your house in such dangerous place.


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## killclimbz (Aug 10, 2007)

My understanding that the area the snowboarder was in was permanently closed to human traffic. 

Still, if you build a house in an avalanche path, that path is going to slide. Regardless if a human triggers it or not. 

Not really sure what is going to happen with this one. I know the DA is reported to be looking if charges are warranted or not.


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## CassMT (Mar 14, 2013)

on the radio last nite the avalanche center expert went through the 'perfect storm ' of up and down temps, rainfall, then a blizzard at minus 20 , that led to this. conditions that 'may never' have occurred there before. thats a pretty old part of town, those houses have been there like 100yrs. they have suggested the other houses at drainage bottoms evacuate for the next 3-4 days, probably a good ideer!


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## killclimbz (Aug 10, 2007)

Man, I don't care if it is a 50 year, 100 year, or 1000 year avalanche path. It is still an avalanche path which means given the right conditions avalanches run it. Serious bummer, but if I was the home owners I would be hoping for a home owner insurance payout for a total property loss to move. No way I would want to be there.


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## poutanen (Dec 22, 2011)

killclimbz said:


> Still, if you build a house in an avalanche path, that path is going to slide. Regardless if a human triggers it or not.


This is my feeling on people who build in flood zones, avalanche zones, tsunami zones, etc. etc.

I would never wish harm on anybody, but it's hard to feel bad for somebody who chose to live in harms way. And potentially blaming somebody for triggering the avalanche?!? :dunno:


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## sclogger (Dec 3, 2013)

The surrounding homeowners property values just took a steep nosedive!


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## CassMT (Mar 14, 2013)

i think we tempt fate everytime we walk out the door, drive to get groceries or whatever...i wouldn't call these people stupid, maybe they got a great deal on the house and assessed the risk, or more likely did not even think of the million to one shot actually coming down on them, by all accounts this was and extremely rare convergence of events

but i mean fuck, someone is Dead, someone's wife, someone's grandma ffs

future people will look back and say, "those stupid americans! built their whole damn country on top of the Yellowstone Caldera, what dumbasses!" , are we stupid? maybe so, life is a gamble


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## neni (Dec 24, 2012)

CassMT said:


> UPDATE
> 
> the 68yr old woman, who was trapped for 3 hours, died of her unjuries sunday...damn. her husband ( who happens to have been one of my wife's UofM proffessors back in the day) is still alive in critical condition. the little boy of 8 was realeased, he was trapped 1 hour, amazingly, jammed up agin a fence in a pocket of air.


Sad news  Condolences and best wishes! Hope the husband will recover. 

BTW: I live 15km away from a nuclear power plant and wasn't there something with LA and earthquakes... :dunno:


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## killclimbz (Aug 10, 2007)

You can't avoid everything but somethings are pretty easy to avoid. Avalanche paths in the US generally being one of them. 
There is a barn in Ophir right under one of the gnarliest avalanche paths you will ever see. Huge class 4's run it. Yet it has been standing for well over 100 years in a path that runs about once a season at least. Turns out it sits on top of a micro feature that splits the slide just before it gets to the barn. Whoever built it got really lucky or really understood terrain management. 

Sent from Verticalsports.com Free App


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## KansasNoob (Feb 24, 2013)

Maybe they got lucky. Where did the house, silo, granary and other barn go? Lol


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## Redline (Jan 14, 2014)

sclogger said:


> The surrounding homeowners property values just took a steep nosedive!


You could even say their property values are on a slippery slope.


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## speedjason (May 2, 2013)

Redline said:


> You could even say their property values are on a slippery slope.


good one:thumbsup:


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## poutanen (Dec 22, 2011)

Redline said:


> You could even say their property values are on a slippery slope.


They're on the verge of going downhill...


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## killclimbz (Aug 10, 2007)

The local avalanche center has put up the final report on this. Looking at the pictures, it appears there are several homes threatened by this hill side. I also have to surmise that the threat is generally not this bad but on occasion it there can obviously be a large amount of snow hanging on that slope. The for sale sign would be going up on my house, that much I know...

http://www.missoulaavalanche.org/wp-content/uploads/Mount-Jumbo-Avalanche-Report_public1.pdf


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## CassMT (Mar 14, 2013)

no mincing of words there, it was the snowboarder who touched it off...at the time local radio never actually committed to that

after this it might be pretty hard to sell a place there! maybe for 50 bucks and a 6er


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## killclimbz (Aug 10, 2007)

There has to be some Texan who would buy it...


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## snowklinger (Aug 30, 2011)

killclimbz said:


> There has to be some Texan who would buy it...


:thumbsup::thumbsup:


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## CassMT (Mar 14, 2013)

final word came down today: no charges will be filed against the snowboarder or sledders...basically no criminal intent. local coverage has managed to drag snowboarding in general thru the mud, but so be it


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## BurtonAvenger (Aug 14, 2007)

So you're saying there's a cheap house in that neighborhood?


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## CassMT (Mar 14, 2013)

i think it's a cheap empty lot, lol

and tons of ppl who can't sell their house if the wanted to...


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## BoardWalk (Mar 22, 2011)

CassMT said:


> tons of ppl who can't sell their house if the wanted to...


Something to look into, I've always wanted a run right outside my door.


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## mhaas (Nov 25, 2007)

Ill by the whole subdivision, excavate a huge mote at the base of the slide path. Turn one property into a starbucks, another into an apple store. Then sell the each house for 3 times what I paid for them.... Can some one borrow me some money?


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## a4h Saint (Jan 24, 2013)

BoardWalk said:


> Something to look into, I've always wanted a run right outside my door.


+1 Diverting a 120mph wall of snow can't be that hard


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## poutanen (Dec 22, 2011)

mhaas said:


> Ill by the whole subdivision, excavate a huge mote at the base of the slide path. Turn one property into a starbucks, another into an apple store. Then sell the each house for 3 times what I paid for them.... Can some one borrow me some money?


Only trouble would be insuring the place, and that's a requirement of a mortgage methinks. Now if you bought it with cash... Just stick a trailer on the property and insure the trailer. It gets washed away? Get another one! :yahoo:


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