Mudslide victims' remains found, the search for answers continues

Logan » The first hours were frantic, as rescue workers looking for three people caught in a landslide fought against time and probability to free the victims from the muddy wreckage.

But by the end of the first day of searching, high hope had given way to hard truth. And finally, on Tuesday, the fourth day of their forlorn quest, searchers digging by hand and shovel reached the lifeless bodies of Jacqueline Leavey and her two children, Abbey and Victor Alanis.

Questions abound as to what caused the slide. Some have called it an act of nature; others say it was the end result of negligence. It is possible that an answer lies somewhere in the muck that entombed Leavey and her kids -- and it is possible that there will never be a simple explanation as to why their home and lives were destroyed.

In announcing the conclusion of the hunt for the victims' bodies, Logan Mayor Randy Watts balanced grief and relief.

"My mixed emotions are the result of gratitude that our workers were able to bring partial closure to the family, but that gratitude is certainly tempered by the pain we all feel for this family's loss," he said after the bodies of the mom and daughter were found around 4 p.m. The body of Victor Alanis was located later in the evening.

Watts thanked all the rescue workers and told the community to keep the family in their thoughts and prayers.

His words echoed those of Rolando Murillo, a family friend who was appointed spokesman for the grieving relatives. At a noon news conference, just hours before the bodies were found, Murillo thanked the men and women who had contributed to the effort.

"We ask God's blessings on all the rescue workers," he said.

Hundreds of volunteers had contributed to the clean-up and search. Very few of them knew Leavey, an immigrant from El Salvador who had only moved into the neighborhood a few weeks earlier, or her children.

"You could tell she was a good person," said Maria Martinez, who lived in a home just west of Leavey. "She loved her kids a lot. She was always with them playing outside in the frontyard."

Although there may have been little time to become familiar in life, in death the three victims became like family to many in the middle-class neighborhood known as "The Island."

Dinna Freeman said she couldn't sleep so long as the search continued. Like many of her Island neighbors, she had volunteered to help in the effort.

It was Logan Fire Chief Mark Meaker who announced the heart-wrenching decision to shift from a rescue operation to a recovery effort late Saturday "We'll risk a lot to save a lot," he said. "We'll risk nothing to save nothing."

The hillside was extremely unstable, he said, and it was clear that Leavey and her children could not have survived the landslide -- which stuck with the force of a jet hitting a mountain and moved the center of the home nearly 21 feet.

Even after three days spent shoring up the side of the bluff, conditions remained dangerous Tuesday morning. Spotters equipped with air horns sat perched at the edge of the slide area. Three blasts would signal workers below that they had seconds to run from another slide.

Nonetheless, Logan city officials decided on Monday night that they needed more searchers at the site that once was 915 E. Canyon Road. They doubled the search crew to 40 people.

"We don't want this to drag out any longer," Meaker explained.

The bodies recovered, the effort now turns more fully toward helping the victims' families cope. The Red Cross is making long-term housing plans for families from six more houses that are not livable after the slide.

ncarlisle@sltrib.com, mariav@sltrib.com, mlaplante@sltrib.com