Record flooding forces rescues across Western Washington

Published 1:30 am Friday, December 12, 2025

Waterways crested at record levels in several flooded small towns across western Washington overnight, swamping roads and bridges and forcing people near the Canadian border to scramble into attics and onto rooftops to await helicopter rescue.

The swollen Skagit River, which runs through a mountainous agricultural region north of Seattle, continued to rise Friday morning, with its peak level still hours away. Some 78,000 people in the Skagit Valley have been ordered to evacuate, with more than 100,000 told to leave their homes statewide.

The Skagit and Snohomish River farther north reached new heights in several spots Thursday, surpassing records set in 1990. State and local leaders warned that levees and dams would remain at risk for days — and that residents should continue to be wary even as the waters recede.

“This is a very, very serious situation,” Bob Ferguson, Washington’s governor, said at a news conference Thursday. “If you have instructions to evacuate, please, please, please evacuate.”

The heavy rain that has fallen in waves since Monday is the result of an unusually potent atmospheric river system. Pulling a plume of moisture off the warm ocean and spreading it across the Pacific Northwest, the system has spread flooding to Idaho and British Columbia, where highways were shut down.

Coast Guard video captured dramatic helicopter rescues in Sumas, Washington, on the border with Canada, where floodwaters rose as high as 15 feet. The Coast Guard said in a statement that a rescue swimmer had helped four people in Sumas out of a second-story attic window and onto a roof at a home surrounded by water, where they were then hoisted into helicopters.

A landslide blocked part of Interstate 90 east of Seattle, trapping vehicles under mud and tree trunks, and Amtrak suspended service through the Pacific Northwest because of flooding and debris on the tracks. Despite the widespread effects, however, officials in Washington state had not reported any injuries or deaths from the storm as of Friday morning.

Another storm system is expected to arrive as early as Sunday. Forecasters said it would not be as strong as the one this week but would have the potential to cause landslides and more flooding on already saturated ground.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.