Author: Guest Blogger

UW’s Kathy Troost keynotes, with a panel including city officials, a local biologist, and a geotech engineer. Three months after the terrible mudslide tragedy in Oso, WA. the Finn Hill Neighborhood Alliance held a first-ever special event exploring the threats of landslides and mudslides in our corner of Kirkland and Kenmore. Held as part of FHNA’s general meeting, June 25th, 2014, the event attracted more than 125 residents and concerned homeowners, many interested in learning to identify and reduce risks of erosion or slippage on properties where they live. Kathy Goetz Troost, a senior lecturer at the University of Washington’s Department of Earth and Applied Sciences, delivered the keynote talk. One of the foremost experts in Puget Sound lowland geology, she addressed landslide risks on Finn Hill and Goat Hill, detailing what landslides are and why they predominate here where we live, in the Puget Sound. While it may come as a shock to some of us to learn this, the hills that we live on – Finn Hill and Goat Hill – are particularly prone to landslides and mudslides. “They not only appear on King County’s hazard maps, but a good portion of our neighborhood is in a high hazard area,” said FHNA board member Francesca Lyman, organizer of the event, who introduced Troost and the panelists. She noted that the Holmes Point Overlay, for the western slope of Finn...