OLYMPIC VALLEY, Calif. — The part of Palisades Tahoe where Wednesday's deadly avalanche happened had just opened for the season 30 minutes earlier.
Michael Gross, vice president of operations at Palisades Tahoe, said the area where the avalanche happened was KT-22 and the lift opened at 9 a.m. There had been avalanche control assessments going on in the area since Sunday.
"For the past few days, they've been up there doing control work, evaluating weather conditions, setting up all the safety markings, hazard markings, etc. to get it prepared for today's opening," said Gross.
He added it's typical for a site to open even if heavy snow is expected.
"We'll evaluate the conditions and based on our expertise and our experience and the history. We deem its condition safe and we will open," said Gross.
Gross said avalanche mitigation includes forecasting and decades worth of weather data. It also include checking wind speeds, snowpack density, wind direction and more.
"The people that are doing the work are are truly experts in their field, most of them and working in it for 10 to 20 years, some of them upwards of 50 years, just doing forecasting," said Gross.
The avalanche caused the death of one man. Three others had non-life-threatening injuries. Of those people, Gross said two of them were caught in the slide and pulled out. The other two were buried, including the man who died.
