Hi Teslinhiker, to give this flatlander a sense of scale how would you say it compares with the old Frank slide at Turtle Mountain.
I have been through Frank a few times and took the time to sit for a while and appreciate how big it must have been.

The Pemberton slide was actually bigger then the Frank slde (which I also have also been through). The newest estimates on the slide near Pemberton is that it was 40 million cubic metres in total. This link describes more in detail. The BC Place stadium they refer to is a covered 60,000,00 seat soft dome stadium in downtown Vancouver Canada that is currently undergoing a refit to a retractable roof. if any of you watched the opening/closing 2010 Winter Olympic ceremonies, it will give you a sense of how big the inside of the stadium is.

The Hope Slide is considered the biggest Canadian slide in modern times (1965). The town of Hope is about 90 miles east of Vancouver and the slide area is a few miles up from there on Highway 3 East. I have some photos somewhere of the debris and boulder field and will post them if I can find them.

Some very good photos of the Pemberton Slide area can be seen here and here. The top of the peaks is at about 8500'

What's the status of the water now? I assume the slide is holding back the water like a (very big) dam, yes?

HJ

That what happened to the little town where I was going to school, small flooding caused a dam which then broke causing a major flood. The dam though was a railroad bridge at another small town up river.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheat_River#1985_flood

Its also funny how the "official" stories don't match reality.

"The flood also wiped out the school in Rowlesburg, which caused the consolidation of a high school for the county"

The school board wanted the consolidated school well before the flood and the flood didn't wipe out the school, the school was sold and bought a few times and is now a WWII museum. The super great all county high school became a model for other counties shortly afterward then 20 years later the state took over the county school board due to corruption and stealing of lots of $. And those like me had to go buy a bunch of books to actually get an education.

"What's the status of the water now?"

It seems the creek carved a channel through the debris and drained a good portion of the newly-formed lake. The evac order was lifted, but all that debris could cause flooding problems in the future.

Hmm. Yes, all that debris could be washed downstream if there were a flood. Well, at least it seems like there's no imminent danger of a collapse of a debris dam and a subsequent rapid release of a significant volume of water.

HJ