Avalanche: Disaster on Stevens Pass

Documentary version, KSTW Nov. 1996. This is my favorite documentary, even though we fell short of the Emmy. The story is one rarely spoken about or written about - the worst avalanche disaster in U.S. history, in 1910 when nearly 100 people died after stuck for days in the snow of Stevens Pass. For more than 50 years there was only one book about it. So much went into this from the research to the creative footage, editing with the sound, the voice work, the followups. A tremendous experience meeting all of these people who have a part in this story. Big, big kudos to photographer Geoff Nelson who brought together the video and made a ton of stills come alive. From the story standpoint, all credit goes to Bob Kelly who opened up years worth of research he has done on this story. He built trust in the families to let him see diaries (we aired them for the first time), gathered volumes of photos and knew the answers we couldn't have found. Plus he was a joy to work with. We were honored he let us tell the story of the disaster and his work to keep the story alive. I have always wondered why this hasn't been a major motion picture movie. It would be tremendous. And then how exciting it was to get more to the stories when others contacted us after the original on-set series.