'Painfully sad': Veteran Washington state trooper killed in alarming stretch of avalanches in US
A longtime trooper for the Washington State Patrol is the latest victim in what has been an especially deadly stretch of avalanches across the U.S. since late January.
Trooper Steve Houle, a 51-year-old who worked with the State Patrol’s commercial vehicle division for 28 years, was caught in an avalanche Monday while snowmobiling near Cle Elum Lake in Washington state, authorities said.
Authorities received reports of two men missing in the avalanche around 12:40 p.m. local time, the sheriff’s office said in a statement. One of the men was able to dig himself out and call for help, the statement said.
Rescue teams recovered the body of the other man, later identified as Houle, around 7 p.m, the Seattle Times reported.
“Steve was a great person and an excellent employee, loved and respected by us all,” State Patrol Chief John Batiste said in a statement. “We hold his memory and his family close to our hearts in this painfully sad time.”
Houle's passing continues an alarming stretch of avalanche deaths across the country.
In the U.S., 16 people died in avalanches from Jan. 30 to Feb. 8, the date of the deadly avalanche near Cle Elum Lake.
That brief time period includes the deadliest week for avalanches since the National Avalanche Center started tracking deaths, the center's director, Karl Birkeland, told CNN.
Among the nine fatal instances since Jan. 30 was a group of four backcountry skiers in Utah who were killed Saturday when an avalanche poured down.
Previously: 4 skiers killed, 4 others injured in Utah avalanche, officials say
The uptick in avalanche fatalities could be attributed to more people turning to outdoor activities because of the pandemic, Simon Trautman, a specialist with the National Avalanche Center, told BuzzFeed News. That, along with what he called a "weak snowpack" from a lack of early season snow, could be a contributing to the increase in deaths.
"The pandemic plays a huge role in the number of people recreating outside," Trautman told the outlet. "It’s possible that the behavioral ramifications of COVID are playing a role in this accident cluster."
In total, 22 avalanche deaths have been reported in the U.S. during the 2020-21 season, with the first coming on Dec. 18, 2020, according to data from the Colorado Avalanche Information Center.
Contributing: Associated Press
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