Playmate to my kids when growing up, shy quiet daughter of our neighbor and friend, Summer was a dear part of my family in that special way found in small communities. She grew up in a large family, the fifth in a line of 13 close-knit kids. She was driving on Highway 530 to a horseshoeing appointment when the mudslide struck her car. Desperately looking for her, her brother Dayn is the one who finally found and recovered Summer's body from her subaru, which was under four feet of mud. Just a week shy of her 37th birthday, Summer was the very kind of person who, if she wasn’t in the mudslide, would have been up to her waist digging and looking for survivors. Such a tragic loss.

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http://www.yakimaherald.com/photosandvideos/statephotos/2042208-8/worst-fears-move-closer-to-reality-for-families
Yakima News item:

DARRINGTON, Wash. — Summer Raffo’s family knows she’s buried somewhere amid a milewide swamp of shattered homes and broken lives.

On Saturday, the 36-year-old Raffo was driving on Highway 530 from Darrington to a horseshoeing appointment in Ryan Falls east of Arlington at the time when a hillside broke free, inundating everything in its path.

Raffo’s family hasn’t heard from her since.

Her relatives rushed to the scene and broke past barricades along with several other families desperate to find loved ones in the muck.

All they found was wreckage, mud and unmistakable signs of death.

”You can’t imagine the devastation until you see it yourself,” said Dayn Brunner, 42, Raffo’s brother. “There were bodies everywhere, cars cut in half.”

For more than five hours, Raffo’s brothers, nephews, sister and friends waded more than waist-deep into the thick, unstable mud.

Raffo’s sister, 16-year-old Brittney Smith, fell into a puddle of blood as she slowly inched toward an area where she heard girls screaming, Brunner said.

Only when search-and-rescue crews threatened to arrest Raffo’s family did they finally retreat from the scene and head back to Darrington.

“You just want to keep on moving every log yourself until you find her,” Brunner said Sunday after a community meeting in Darrington.

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