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" It hasn&amp;#039;t been a great month for the state of Washington. First, there came the massive mudslide the final death toll from which may not be clear for months. And were there environmental factors in that disaster? Were there ignored warnings? Why, yes, of course there were. An ancient glacier is jutting out of the mountain, making its flat plateau unstable, Miller said. The Stillaguamish River was eroding it from below. Rows of conifer trees that helped to mitigate erosion by sucking water through their roots and releasing it into the atmosphere were chopped down by loggers. Rain fell on the bald spots they left, drenching dirt and sand, making the mountain even more precarious. March 2014 has been a \u00ADrecord-breaker, the wettest in Seattle&amp;#039;s history. Miller realized his warning was not heeded when he visited the site following a major landslide in 2006 that did not do nearly as much harm. He could not believe what he saw. &amp;quot;There was new construction,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;The sound of hammering competed with the sound of [destabilized] trees snapping after the mudslide. I can&amp;#039;t believe that someone wanted to build their home there. It was a very bad idea.&amp;quot; And now there is the near-catastrophic explosion and fire at a natural gas facility in another part of the state. The 8:22 a.m. explosion sent shrapnel into a 14.6-million-gallon storage tank, rupturing it and starting the gradual leak of super-cold liquefied natural gas. William Partners officials say the tank was only one-third full...The experts and Williams Partners employees planned to enter the plant a second time Monday night to see if there was a way to stop the tank from leaking, said Capt. Devin Helland of Benton Fire District 1. The vaporized natural gas could explode if mixed with the right amount of oxygen and atmosphere and there was an ignition source, said Capt. Jeff Ripley, also with the fire district. Such a blast would kill anyone within a radius of up to three-quarters of a mile. There is no indication at this time what caused the explosion but, with the fracking boom at its peak, there has been a scramble to create an infrastructure to handle the increased production of natural gas, including the infrastructure necessary for its exportation. In any case, we seem to have passed into a period of history in which this kind of thing is becoming commonplace. And that&amp;#039;s not even to mention the fact that a search for a lost airplane in one of the most remote areas of the planet&amp;#039;s ocean has been complicated by the amount of garbage that&amp;#039;s floating around there. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a28150/washington-mudslide-warnings-040114/>