slide

Summary: A 48-year-old Florence man is found dead Friday and a 25- year veteran faller is presumed dead in a massive mudslide Thursday in the rain-saturated Coast Range

One logger was killed and another was presumed dead in the Coast Range near Florence after a massive mudslide Thursday in a steep draw where the men were working, authorities said.

The partially buried body of 48-year-old Robert G. "Butch" Winona of Florence was found Friday, said Lane County spokesman Mike Moskovitz. Winona's body had come to rest against a still-standing tree, preventing it from becoming further buried, Moskovitz said.

Still missing is 60-year-old Charles M. "Max" Lee, a 25-year employee of Davidson Industries of Mapleton. Although several Lane County Search and Rescue team members and at least two dozen Davidson Industries workers searched the site Friday, no sign of Lee was found, Moskovitz said.

"Late in the afternoon, they found a helmet three feet down in the mud," he said. "It was sniffed out by a search dog. But there's no indication of whose helmet it was."

According to those on the scene, the slide measures 150 feet long, 50 feet wide and between 12 feet and 20 feet deep, depending on the immediate terrain. The hillside on which the two men were working drops at a 36-degree angle, said Moskovitz, and "is the consistency of Jell-O," causing a feeling that another slide could occur at any moment.

"It is very scary out there," he said. "The searchers say the hairs on their arms are standing on end, so acute is the danger."

Moskovitz said the most immediate concern Friday afternoon was the large number of trees, each 4 feet to 5 feet in diameter, that had plunged to the bottom of the hill, along with sliding mud and massive amounts of brush. Walls of logs about 12 feet to 15 feet high had been created at the bottom of the slide, he said, making a search in that area impossible.

John Miller, Lane County Search and Rescue coordinator, decided late in the afternoon to bring in a yarder, a large piece of equipment that picks logs up with a clawlike mechanism, to clear out most of the logs at the bottom of the slide. The rest of Friday was spent setting the yarder up on firm enough ground that it wouldn't cause a slide, Moskovitz said. Crews planned to be back at the site for the actual removal of the logs at 7:30 a.m. today.

"The feeling at this point is that Lee is probably under that logjam," he said. "They can't search for him until those logs are out of there."

Moskovitz said there has been no explanation why the two men were logging in such a steep draw, particularly when the soil in the Coast Range is saturated from recent heavy rains. Last year, the state's Department of Forestry deemed the area at high risk for landslides. He said representatives from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Saif Corp. were at the scene Friday.

Workers from Davidson Industries became aware that the two men were missing Thursday evening, said Aubrey Pendergrass, operations manager for the 45-year-old logging and sawmill operation.

"Normally crews check in with their foreman on the way in, so we know they're moving toward home," he said. When that check-in failed to occur, workers drove immediately to the logging site, 25 miles from the company's headquarters, he said.

According to the Lane County sheriff's office, the first people on the scene saw evidence of a mudslide and, with darkness coming on, called search and rescue authorities. Because of the late hour, the decision was made not to begin a search, although a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter used a "midnight sun," a high intensity light, to scan the area. No sign of Winona or Lee was detected.

Pendergrass said nearly all of the company's loggers returned to the scene early Friday to help with the search. Family-owned Davidson has 85 employees, he said. Pendergrass described Lee as one of the most "experienced and excellent timber fallers the company has ever had," and added that Winona had worked most recently for the company for the past three years and was also considered an excellent faller.

"They were both good folks," he said. "This is a small company, a small town. We're all friends and neighbors. This has been a terrible day for us."

Pendergrass said the company has not, in his time with it, had a fatality in the woods. He added that although the company trains loggers to always take precautions in the woods, there are no specific training exercises for how to respond in case of a mudslide.

Winona's body was taken to Roseburg late Friday, said Douglas County spokeswoman LouAnn Urban, where an autopsy will be performed next week.

A 40-year resident of Florence, Winona was married and the father of three grown children, said his brother, Steve, reached at the family home. Winona was an avid scuba diver and bull hunter, as well as a highly skilled logger, he said.

Because the site is on the border of Lane and Douglas counties, the Douglas County Search and Rescue team will join the search this morning, Urban said.

Moskovitz said the search team on site Friday will lock the gate at the top of Fiddle Creek Road to prevent anyone from entering.

The road itself, which is east of Siltcoos Lake and about 5 miles southeast of Dunes City, is intact, said Doug Putschler, Lane County road maintenance manager.

"We've had no indication of any slides at all on the main road," he said.

The timber Lee and Winona were cutting is Douglas fir mixed with alder. The fir is 3- to 4-feet in diameter at the stump, said Brian Overton, a logger who was guarding the area at the gate, about two miles from the accident scene.

"It's kind of devastating," Overton said. "Butch broke me in on the rigging."

Correspondent John Griffith contributed to this report.

Do you have news of inland Douglas or inland Lane counties?You can reach Debra Gwartney at 541-342-7797 or by e-mail at gwartney@rio.com.