Crews recount search for family

LOGAN — Firefighter Josh Francis spent four grueling days in the muddy trenches.

As one of dozens of searchers from several Cache Valley agencies searching for the bodies of a mother and her two children buried in a mudslide last weekend, the paramedic engineer from the Logan Fire Department spent all of the fourth day shoveling through mud-caked debris — from early morning until the last of the three bodies was recovered nearly 12 hours later.

"Every day, you take a calculated risk," he recounted Thursday. "But I was more focused on bringing relief to the family than on the danger. I didn't even pay attention to the hours. I shoveled until the incident was over."

As recovery workers pulled the bodies of Jacqueline Leavey and her two children, Abbey Alanis, 12, and Victor Alanis, 14, from the rubble that was once their home, Logan Fire Chief Mark Meaker was visibly moved by his team's unprompted emotional response.

"I was impressed with the spontaneous show of reverence by these firefighters," he said. "It was nothing we had to command. It just came naturally. Everybody's hard hats came off, and they put them over their hearts. We were able to bring closure to this family with dignity."

The family died Saturday when a massive mudslide collapsed off the hillside above their Logan home, slamming into their house and burying it. Recovering the bodies proved to be difficult because of the unstable hillside and the large amount of mud and debris.

Although initial reports indicated that the family was most likely clustered in the west end of their rental home at 915 E. Canyon Road when the mudslide hit, further examination of the site and stabilization of the surrounding hillside allowed firefighters to expand their search to the east end of the home. Having used canine crews to facilitate their efforts, Tuesday's work focused primarily on the east side of the property, after the dogs began to "show great interest" there.

"The dogs were a great tool," said Justin Elder, a North Logan firefighter. "It was like looking for a needle in a haystack, and the dogs were like a metal detector."

"We had a job ahead of us, but the focus was the treatment of those bodies," said North Logan Fire Capt. Ben Breazay. "When we weren't digging, it was hard."

"At the end of each shift when we were pulled out, we were disappointed at not being able to continue," echoed Logan Fire Capt. Bryan Davies. "Dealing with the landslide issues, the magnitude of compression and the amount of soil, we quickly saw that this was going to be a huge task and that survivability was very low. We weren't giving up, but we just knew that the chances were very slim."