After cracks formed in the soil, he hired a contractor to install a piping system to handle runoff from the saturated canyon.

Then, on April 12, in the predawn darkness while he was checking to see if a backyard culvert was clogged, an avalanche of mud coursed down the steep slope and buried the 73-year-old park designer.

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Rescue workers said a wall of mud came down the hill behind the Guthries?EUR??,,????'?????<

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Crews found Guthrie?EUR??,,????'?????<

A longtime friend, William Segale, had lunch with Guthrie a week before and said he expressed worries about the saturated hillside.

Segale, like others in the Bay Area?EUR??,,????'?????<

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Roger Gordon, a neighbor of the Guthries?EUR??,,????'?????<

Guthrie was semi-retired and still maintained an office in San Francisco. He had helped design Pier 39 in San Francisco.

He and his family moved into the Mill Valley house soon after it was built in the early 1960s, said Doris and Jack Bloom, the Guthries?EUR??,,????'?????<

Even into his 70s, Guthrie worked a full day at his Jackson Street office, riding home on a commuter bus and walking up a steep hillside.

But he liked nothing better than spending his weekends tending the yard of his home.

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