ABOVE: Dane speaks to the media about the search to find people in the debris
Dane Bruner is setting out for the fifth day in search of Summer.
His sister was driving her car when the deadly slide hit a small community near Oso, Washington. Dane said he has not seen any sign of her or her car.
“I haven’t given up on the search, I’m not giving up on her because she wouldn’t give up on us,” he said.
“When we would find her, she would say ‘About frickin’ time’.”
He said the weather has greatly hampered their search.
“On Monday I got sunburnt, yesterday we were freezing to death because it rained on us for pretty much the majority of the day and it just made conditions even worse trying to walk out there and stuff and get through the debris.”
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Bruner, who is from Darrington, says what he notices most since the slide, is the smell.
“We don’t know what we’re smelling,” he said.
Bruner and his team are combing the debris with their bare hands and using shovels to uncover items.
So far they have found photo albums, wedding dresses, graduation gowns, diplomas and text books of some of the kids who are still missing.
“Any kind of mementos that we can get out that the family would want to have, that’s what we’re doing,” he said.
“This is the little part that we can do.”
Their team is working alongside a team of diggers and cadaver dogs who go in to an area first and then they follow after.
There’s so much debris and the ground is like a thick soupy mess, Bruner said, making the terrain tough to navigate.
Federal agencies and search and rescue teams have come under criticism recently for not responding quickly enough to the slide. Bruner agreed with that feeling.
“It was very frustrating for me, it was very frustrating for my family,” he said.
LISTEN: Frantic 9-1-1 caller describes the devastation following the deadly mudslide
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