Heavy rain, wind hit urban areas hardest

Published 7:34 am Wednesday, December 5, 2007

By Tuesday afternoon, the rain stopped, the wind dwindled to a breeze and sunshine started to dry saturated soil and souls.

The series of early December storms that caused rivers to flood and turned streets into rushing torrents caused more damage in urban areas than rural valleys.

More than 4.6 inches of rain fell in Monroe on Monday, and 4 inches fell near Silver Lake, Snohomish County surface water officials said.

“We’re looking at a hundred-year event as far as rainfall,” county spokesman Brian Parry said.

Clogged culverts tore up roads. A swollen stream displaced 20 Lynn­wood families, and standing water covered roads and filled basements countywide.

The Snohomish, Skykomish and Stillaguamish rivers all spilled over their banks but caused little damage, especially compared with last year’s Election Day floods.

County officials said it’s too early to know how much damage was caused to homes, businesses and public property. It is already clear that road damage alone likely will run into the millions.

“The biggest problems is the east-west commute in south county,” Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management spokesman Mark Murphy said.

A gaping hole below the asphalt closed Seattle Hill Road, state Department of Transportation officials said. Repairs are expected to take weeks and likely cost up to $5 million.

Olympic View Drive in Edmonds was closed after an embankment gave way, city public works director Noel Miller said.

He planned to ask the City Council for up to $1 million to repair city roads, he said.

Around Edmonds, mud slid down hills and basements flooded, Mayor Gary Haakenson said.

“Water, water everywhere,” he said.

In Lynnwood, water from Scriber Creek flooded the Will­shire Cove and the Oxford Square apartments, forcing 20 families to find another place to stay.

People were in cleanup mode Tuesday, said Willshire Cove manager Darlah Lovell. Apartment managers assessed damage and began to tear up waterlogged carpets, she said.

In many parts of the county, the floodwaters mixed with sewage, overwhelming sewers and wastewater treatment plants.

More than 102 million gallons of runoff water rushed into the Everett’s sewer lagoons on Smith Island during a 24-hour period beginning Sunday morning, said Robert Waddle, a spokesman for Everett Public Works. Typically about 18 million gallons daily flow into the treatment ponds. Officials had to shut off pumps around the city and divert a diluted mix of storm water and untreated sewage into the Snohomish River and Puget Sound, Waddle said.

The diversion prevented sewage from topping the lagoon’s levees, he said. Had that happened, the damage to the city and the environment would have been significant.

In Snohomish, raw sewage and storm water spilled through a manhole cover Monday, public works director Tim Heydon said.

The sewage was “really diluted” and only minor cleanup was required, he said.

The state Department of Ecology and the Snohomish Health District were notified, he said.

“This was something new and different,” Heydon said.

Some sewer drains in Lynn­wood also backed up onto city streets Monday, said Bill Franz, Lynnwood Public Works director.

Cities around the state were forced to take emergency measures because of the large volume of rain and snow runoff, state Department of Ecology spokesman Larry Altose said.

“Sometimes you have to take necessary steps to protect the system,” Altose said.

With diluted wastewater mixing with rain runoff, Altose cautioned people to stay away from marine water and avoid shellfishing for about a week.

“The bottom line is we can make all the great drainage systems, but when you look at the amount of rainfall that came down, it just overloaded them,” Murphy said. “You could have had the Hoover Dam there and it still would have overloaded them.”

Predictions that the Snohomish River could come within a couple feet of its record high were downgraded Monday night.

No major levees were topped or damaged, according to preliminary reports.

“We’re really happy the river stayed down 4 feet,” said Norm Skjelbreia, flood engineer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The corps had a team stationed in Snohomish to monitor the flood, he said.

The Snohomish crested at 27.6 feet at 10 a.m. in Snohomish on Tuesday and at 16.28 feet at 9 a.m. in Monroe. The river is not projected to drop below flood stage before this afternoon.

On Tuesday, the Ness family of Snohomish went to Kla-Ha-Ya park to see how high the river would rise.

“It’s not bad as last year,” Kyle Ness, 7, said pointing at the unofficial flood gauge on Todo Mexican restaurant’s garage door.

Water barely reached the bottom of the garage doors on First Street, where previous floods are marked.

The river charged past town carrying trees, root balls and giant limbs.

“It’s amazing to see what the river can do,” said Monica Saur, who was out for a walk with her boyfriend, Frank Stipe.

On Monday night, Stipe, who moved to a home about 25 feet from the river last year, said he filled a few sandbags. Then he learned the flooding likely wasn’t going to be that bad.

“We called our neighbors who have been here for a while and they told us it wasn’t necessary,” he said.

During the 2006 floods, the couple evacuated their home for six days, although the house was spared severe damage.

Saur said she was thankful they made it two years in a row without suffering property loss or injuries.

“We’re just really lucky that nothing bad happened and that everyone is safe and dry,” she said.

Farther east, crews from Snohomish County worked Tuesday to try to save what’s left of Index-Galena Road. Crews still haven’t repaired all the damage caused by last year’s flooding.

Debris and rocks clogged a drainage pipe beneath the road a few miles north of Index, forcing runoff water over the road. Crews used a backhoe to try to unclog the pipe, drawing spectators.

“I think this road is (shot). It’s undermined,” said Matt Burke of Lynnwood, who fishes near Index.

“It’s going to take significant repairs to fix all the problems here,” said Roy Scalf, a spokesman for county public works.

People in Index took the storm in stride.

“The town is fine,” Karen Hultberg said. “We weren’t affected. It wasn’t as bad as the last year’s storm.”

Southern Washington counties bore the brunt of the storm’s wrath; three deaths were reported.

“Compared to a lot of other areas in the state, I feel pretty darn lucky,” Murphy said.

“All things considered, especially considering the ferocity of this storm, it could have been worse,” he said. “We’ll always take the lesson we learn from it and apply it for next time. We live in an area with rivers … and this is going to happen.”

Herald writers Bill Sheet and David Chircop contributed to this report.