VIDEO/PHOTOS: For the first time, photographs of the harrowing devastation caused by the landslide in Snohomish County have been unveiled. Ed Hrivnak, the co-pilot of Snohawk-10, the rescue helicopter that first arrived on the scene, shared his account of the traumatizing events of that day.
"It's overwhelming," said Hrivnak. "Steve Klat, who I was flying with, knows the area quite well, and so do I. But when we arrived, everything looked wrong. Steve even questioned where Oso was."
The destruction was almost incomprehensible. Houses had been blown apart, cars were compressed to almost nothing except their tires. Assessing the disaster's magnitude was challenging.
The trouble didn't end there. As they attempted their rescue mission, the terrain's instability made holding a steady hovering position a challenge.