"It's currently all hands on deck," said one Olympic Valley Firefighter, who supplied video of the scene.
An
avalanche killed one person and injured another on Wednesday morning at
Palisades Tahoe, a ski resort in Olympic Valley, California.
"The avalanche caused one fatality and one injury," the Placer County Sheriff's Office reported in a four-hour update.
Sgt.
Dave Smith, a sheriff's spokesperson, said during a news conference
Wednesday that no more information about the individual who died "as a
result of the avalanche" will be disclosed until an investigation by the
coroner's office.
He stated that the other individual buried suffered non-life threatening injuries.
According
to the sheriff's office, no one else has been reported missing. Smith
stated that all search efforts have ended and that "nobody else is up on
the mountain as a result of the avalanche."
Both the individual
who died and the person who was injured were out-of-town visitors, said
to Michael Gross, Palisades Tahoe's vice president of mountain
operations.
Gross added that two more people were caught in the
snow slide: one was "extracted" by her partner and the other was
"assisted" by other guests.
Gross said he didn't know how far they were buried in the snow.
For the rest of Wednesday, the resort closed both sides of the mountain.
The
avalanche occurred around 9:30 a.m. local time on the Palisades side of
the resort mountain, according to Palisades Tahoe. It was specifically
above the GS bowl region of KT-22, according to the sheriff's office.
Gross
said KT-22 opened for the season at 9 a.m. on Wednesday. He stated that
the ski patrol has been "up there doing avalanche control assessments
since Sunday," which includes assessing the weather and putting up
safety and hazard markings in preparation for the ski season.
According
to the Sierra Avalanche Centre, there was an avalanche risk on
Wednesday, and the cause was a significant winter storm in the area.
0 Comments