Sultan-based Amercare Products assess flood damage

Published 1:30 am Friday, December 19, 2025

SULTAN — A local business is just starting to assess the extent of the damages it sustained when floodwaters flowed into its warehouse stocked with thousands of toiletries for correctional facilities last week in Sultan.

Hundreds of boxes of product fell on top of each other in the flooding that engulfed the 10,000-square-foot warehouse operated by wholesale distributor Amercare Products.

The water level inside the building at 111 Main Street had risen to 6 feet on the night of Dec. 11, said Jason Fincher, a warehouse worker who was assessing damage on Monday.

“The water just started pouring in from a sewage drain Thursday afternoon,” he said as he walked a reporter around the warehouse. “Everything is contaminated.”

A tour of the warehouse showed boxes broken open from the force of the water, with tubes of toothpaste and toothbrushes sticking out of some of them.

The warehouse sits at a vulnerable spot, next to the confluence of the Skykomish and Sultan Rivers, and was inundated with water when the Skykomish rose to 24.1 feet — 5 feet above flood level — on the night of Dec. 11, said Sultan Mayor Russell Wiita.

Fincher said water started flowing in from a sewer drain inside the building on Thursday afternoon, but there was only a couple of inches of water. He told the other two employees to go home, just to be safe. When he left a few hours later, and the water was still only a couple of inches deep.

When he got back on Saturday to inspect, he said he could not believe the mess he saw.

“There was no stopping the water,” Fincher said.

Julie Siegel, Amercare’s operations manager, said the boxes of personal care products were sitting neatly on pallets when the warehouse staff left after the intrusion of water on Thursday.

“We did not think it would be this bad,” she said of the flooding. “I was surprised at the force of the water that knocked over the pallets.”

Siegel said the business did not have flood insurance but would recover. She said a remediation expert will be hired to assess total damages and whether any of the products could be saved.

Fincher estimated the damaged products could total a quarter of a million dollars, but Siegel said no formal cost estimation has been done.

Siegel said the Sultan business supplied personal care products to correctional facilities, along with some state hospitals, throughout the Western U.S. She said the facilities would temporarily be served by another warehouse in Kent.

Wiita said flooding had occurred at the Amercare Warehouse before in 2015 and 2020. He said the city had been negotiating with a broker to buy the building from its owner back in late 2021, early 2022, but a deal was never reached.

He said the city wanted to turn the building into an outdoor-indoor farmers market that could be closed during times of flooding.

The broker, Seattle-based Bob Swain, said that the city never made an offer to purchase the building.

He said the warehouse had been vacant for approximately five years until Amercare purchased it. Swain said Amercare owner Wendy Hemming paid $493,000 to acquire the building in April 2023.

Siegel said Hemming was unavailable for comment.

Wiita said damage estimates to businesses in Sultan were being gathered by city officials, but it was too early to make an exact damage assessment.

The city of Snohomish was another community in the county in which some businesses saw flood damage, but no tally has been made of the financial impact, said Shari Ireton, director of community engagement and strategic initiatives for the city.

She said one high-end showroom for kitchen ranges, Art Culinaire, saw flooding but moved the ranges to another location before the storm.

The showroom’s website lists handcrafted ranges from the French manufacturer, Lacanche, starting at around $12,000 and going to more than $30,000.

Ruben Muniz, whose Todo Mexico restaurant overlooks the Snohomish River, said a small amount of water reached the bottom floor of his restaurant, but the main dining room on the first floor was not affected.

He said the restaurant stayed open through the storms.

Muniz said he has seen good fortune, noting prior storms in 2009 and 2015 that caused flooding in Snohomish resulted in only minor water damage at his establishment.

“We have been very lucky,” he said.

Randy Diamond: 425-339-3097; randy.diamond@heraldnet.com