OSO, Wash. — Julie Petersen said she starts holding her breath at the beginning of every March.
“Then you start remembering,” she said while standing next to a new memorial in Oso, Washington. “Then you can’t wait for it to be over.”
A new memorial honors the 43 people who lost their lives in the deadliest landslide in U.S. history on March 22, 2014. Before a ceremony held on the 10-year anniversary of the disaster, survivors and family members who lost loved ones shared their stories on Thursday.
'Still reminds me of the loss'
Christina Jefferds, 1968-2014, and Sanoah Huestis, 2013-2014
Petersen was at Costco when she and her niece ran into an Oso volunteer firefighter on the morning of March 22, 2014. The volunteer asked why they were at the store. Confused, they rushed to Oso and learned the details of the destruction.
Forty-five-year-old Christina Jefferds was Petersen’s sister and 4-month-old Sanoah was her grandniece. Christina was babysitting Sanoah, who was the youngest victim of the landslide, at the time of the slide.
The memorial panel for Sanoah and Christina features two sunflowers, along with images of Pooh Bear and Piglet.
“It’s beautiful, but it still reminds me of the loss,” Petersen said. “It just helps me remember that they were loved and cared for.”
Healing comes one day at a time, even 10 years later, Petersen said. But, she said, it’s difficult to think of the big milestones her sister has missed – birthdays, weddings, births.
“All those moments in your life that you feel joy celebrating with another human,” she said.
Petersen said she hopes people will leave the memorial knowing that their purpose in life is to be kind to one another.
“It’s so important for us to remember this, that it’s history, for one,” she said. ”And it’s scientific that we need to put more effort into prevention and learning how to save property and lives.”
'Such total destruction'
Brandy Lee Ward, 1955 to 2014
Tim Ward and his wife, Brandy Lee Ward, had just finished mapping out the weekend’s “honey-do” list, he said. There was a lot to care for on their 7 and a half acres of land in Oso.
He was getting into the shower on that Saturday morning in 2014 when the water pressure began to fade and he heard what he thought was Navy jets flying overhead. The ground started shaking.
He moved toward the hallway in case it was an earthquake and saw Brandy looking out the back window of their home.
“She started running towards me and about that time, I reached for her and she was reaching her hand up towards me and everything disappeared,” he said on Thursday. “She was gone. I was somewhere, I don’t really know where.”
When he woke up, he was 500 yards away from his home, looking up through a hole in the ground. Everything was orange, he recalled, noting it was the same color as the rust on the memorial panels now standing where debris once was.
Hours later, Ward was evacuated by helicopter and taken to Harborview Medical Center. He would spend the next six months recovering from massive injuries to his pelvis and hips, even having to relearn how to walk and use the restroom.
But 58-year-old Brandy was gone in an instant. Search and Rescue recovered Brandy in the following days.
The Wards were married for 37 years, meeting in junior high school, and raised two daughters together.
“We’re all coming here to say, ‘Mom, job well done,’” Ward said at the memorial. “Because it was nothing we could plan [for] – you can’t plan something like this.”
“The memories we had with her, they’re beautiful,” he said.
The sorrow persists, Ward said, but so do the beautiful memories they shred together.
Brandy Ward’s memorial panel is adorned with a hummingbird, one of the last photos ever taken of her and colorful flowers, paying homage to their enjoyment of living a “simple life,” growing their garden and feeding hummingbirds off their back deck, he explained.
Ward listed items forever lost in the slide: His wedding ring, a favorite shirt, their high school yearbooks. What was returned of his belongings fits in a small box, he said.
“That’s my entire first 57 years of my life,” he said. “when I think about that, it’s like the material things aren’t important but the material items are how your children, grandchildren see pictures of you when you were a little boy, how you look like your daughter or how you look like your son. And they’ll never know that now.”