By M. Alex Johnson
Three people, including an 8-year-old boy, were rushed to a hospital Friday after an avalanche tumbled off Mount Jumbo and destroyed a house in a residential neighborhood in Montana, Mont., authorities said.
Authorities had little information on the conditions of the victims other than to say they were all alive when they were pulled from the scene and were taken to St. Patrick Hospital.
Rescue crews conduct a search after an avalanche Friday in the Rattlesnake Valley of Missoula, Mont.
Police, fire officials and search-and-rescue crews from around the region worked for more than three hours to recover the three — an elderly couple and the 8-year-old son of a neighbor who had been playing nearby — after the wave of snow washed over Holly Street in Missoula's Rattlesnake Valley neighborhood about 4 p.m. (6 p.m. ET).
The rescue effort was slowed by a gas leak that was caused by the avalanche, Missoula police Sgt. Travis Welsh told NBC News.
Missoula police and sheriff's officials said that an avalanche team was assessing the risk of a secondary avalanche but that no evacuations had been ordered.
Cheryl McMillan, who lives near the home that was buried, told The Missoulian newspaper that she heard a loud boom.
"Then, when we looked again, we saw that their whole house was kind of no longer there, at least the top floor," McMillan told the newspaper.
McMillan said she and her husband had lived in the neighborhood for 31 years and had "never, ever, ever, ever" before seen an avalanche.
The neighborhood sits at the base of 4,700-foot-high Mount Jumbo northeast of the city, which was under a blizzard warning through Saturday morning with sustained winds of 20 to 30 mph and gusts up to 40 mph.
First published February 28 2014, 5:15 PM
0 comments:
Post a Comment