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It's surprising that you'd get any thermal return after all this time. Thank god for people like you that are able to help. I wish I was in a position to join in but unfortunately I can't.Thank you to the Admin for allowing me to share more pictures. This is only a snapshot of what we are facing. The photos are from several locations, including Swananoa, Elk Park, and Green Mountain.
If you'd like to donate, message me, and I'll provide the contact information for The Altitude Project, my company's primary partner. One of our significant and urgent needs right now is high-resolution thermal imaging equipment and additional drones. We are racing against the cold weather as locating bodies after everything is frozen will be nearly impossible.
Let me know if you want to join us on a mission. We need people to help clean up the remaining homes and businesses. Cutting wood, clearing debris, etc., requires lots of willing hands, especially if you have equipment to help—loaders, skidders, chainsaws, log splitters, etc. Many locations need help organizing donations as well as shelving and the like. I put some examples in the photos. On one of our missions, we built shelves out of pallets, which we weren't expecting to do. We reused screws and nails from the pallets - it wasn't pretty, but it worked!
Let's put together a Ranger aid convoy. @Ford Motor Company may be able to sponsor such an effort.
And now - the pictures:
Many of the roads have been damaged, undercut, or are completely gone
Our pallet shelves in use
There is debris EVERYWHERE, and it is making activities dangerous.
Residences were isolated by their entry bridges being wiped out.
Many/most items you see are from upstream, including vehicles and entire buildings.
I'm doing a thermal survey of the debris piles across the river. Thermal and K9s are the only two methods that allow us to survey at a reasonable speed.
Many of the victims caught up in the water were stripped out of their clothing, making it potentially important evidence of what happened to that person. It's a challenge as we don't know if it came from a washline or a person if there is no human tissue/fluid on the clothing.
Many of the debris piles are highly compacted by water. Thermal imaging is how we examine the debris before we start disturbing it. Due to the depth/thickness of the debris piles, we have to remove layers to make sure we're not missing anything.
We found several large propane tanks that seemed full or nearly full.
From this picture, you can see how high the debris is relative to the current water level, which is normal depth at this point. The water reached 40' and was moving at 100mph.
The cables railing from a deck or stairs tightly wrapped around a tree by the water swirling the timbers around it. Keep in mind this is at the top of ravine - 40' above where the water is now.
This shows one of the ways we use the drone. I reduced the resolution of all the pics before I posted them, but in the original resolution, we zoom in and examine the debris for evidence of human remains.
This picture is a little depressing due to the irony of the life preserver on the rocks.
This gives a perspective of how large the debris piles are. One of my teammates is in the center of this drone picture. We have a lot of ground to cover and would never be able to do so without the thermal and drone.
This woman is a family member of a lady whose remains are still missing. The missing woman's shirt and some other items have been found and verified by the family.
She is looking at the debris by the standing trees across the river. We had a thermal hit and began taking apart the pile with an excavator. When the thermal target moved with the debris, we flagged the site and backed out to prevent further disturbance.
She just sat down and stared. We don't know what we found with the thermal; the specialized teams will go through it. We are not recovering intact bodies this far downstream, so we rely on DNA verification when we recover anything that could be human tissue..
qThe above are just general pictures of the carnage.
This is an example of the help sites need to organize and distribute supplies and aid. If you have time to volunteer, give them a hand. It is cold in the mountains and we don't want needed supplies damaged by freezing termps.
Just some more carnage.
Best Regards,
Eric
It’s the heat from the insect mass that we detect, but they are pretty much dormant with the cooler temps. Spring will be our next opportunity to use thermal.
I just joined it, thanks. It's hard to keep them all straight!
We'll be in Green Mountain to continue S&R ops on Saturday and Sunday. Let me know where you end up, and we can try to meet in person.
