Highway swallowed by Washington mudslide to reopen, six months later

By Victoria Cavaliere SEATTLE (Reuters) - A Washington state highway destroyed by a deadly mudslide in March was scheduled to reopen this week, officials said on Monday, as residents of a rural community devastated by the disaster marked its six-month anniversary. Forty-three people were killed when a rain-soaked hillside collapsed above the Stillaguamish River on March 22, unleashing a torrent of mud that swallowed 50 houses near Oso, 55 miles northeast of Seattle. A section of highway, state route 530, was decimated, cutting off a major transportation route in the Cascade foothills community. After six months of work, the corridor was to reopen on Tuesday, according to the Washington State Department of Transportation. The highway had been set to reopen on Monday but rain delayed final preparations, the department said. The two-lane highway, which was rebuilt with $28 million of Federal Emergency Relief funding, was elevated on both its eastern and western sides to accommodate an increased chance of flooding since the landslide changed the geography of the valley floor, officials said. As normal traffic was set to resume near Oso, residents marked the six-month anniversary of the slide and the ensuing weeks-long search for victims and survivors. First responders, firefighters, community members who lost their homes and loves ones gathered on Sunday for a remembrance ceremony near the site of the collapsed hillside. A bagpipe played "Amazing Grace," under a U.S. flag hoisted to a tree and lowered to half-staff, The Herald newspaper reported. "We've learned many things in the last six months. One important one is to live each day to its fullest, appreciate what, and more importantly who, you have. All can be gone in an instant," Willy Harper, Oso's fire chief, told the paper. Other remembrance ceremonies were planned this week. (Reporting by Victoria Cavaliere; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)