EVERETT — Amid record flooding in Snohomish County and Western Washington, President Donald Trump approved a federal emergency declaration for the state, authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to aid in flood responses.
“I just received a phone call from Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. Secretary Noem informed me that the president signed our request for an emergency declaration,” Ferguson said in a press release Friday morning. “I expressed my thanks to Secretary Noem on behalf of the people of the State of Washington during this extremely challenging time.”
On Wednesday, Ferguson issued a statewide emergency, calling in the Washington National Guard to support in rescue efforts.
Snohomish County requested additional assistance from the National Guard on Wednesday to access communities cut off from floodwaters, said Meghan Jordan, spokesperson for Snohomish County’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, in a text on Friday morning.
In Monroe, the Evergreen State Fair Park is hosting free emergency stabling for livestock. As of Thursday night, the fairgrounds had 171 horses, 104 beef cattle, 94 goats, 16 pigs, 140 chickens, three rabbits and two turkeys, according to Evergreen State Fair Park Manager Mike Ohlsen.
Overall, an estimated 800 people were ordered to evacuate in unincorporated Snohomish County. The Red Cross opened a disaster relief shelter at the Evergreen State Fair Park in Monroe on Tuesday. As of Friday morning, 52 people were staying at the shelter.
‘All my diapers, all my baby food. Everything’s in the trailer’
Ashlie Coffin and her two boys, Bradley Hollandsworth, 5, and Junior Hollandsworth, 2, were three of the people staying at the shelter.
Holding Junior Hollandsworth against her hip, a yellow toothbrush tucked into her hair, Coffin tried to corral her older son as he ran around a parking lot of the fairgrounds.
Coffin and her boys live at Three Rivers Mobile Home Park, normally just steps away from the Snohomish River north of Highway 522.
Coffin had a new trailer delivered to the mobile home park three months ago. On Tuesday, Coffin was in Everett with her 22-year-old daughter when she received a call from her neighbor, informing her that an evacuation order had been issued for the park.
“The thing is, I don’t have a truck,” she said. “So I couldn’t pull my trailer out.”
Coffin asked one of her friends with a truck if they could go get her trailer, but by then, the road was closed for safety reasons.
“They did a video, and everything was underwater,” she said. “All my diapers, all my baby food. Everything’s in the trailer.”
After leaving Everett, the family came to the fairgrounds, where they had been for the last two days, waiting for the water to recede so they could return and assess the damage.
‘I want to go over there and help them, but I can’t get out of here’
The Snohomish River broke some of its 1990 records on Thursday, cresting at 34.15 feet, over 5 feet above the National Weather Service’s major flooding mark. Unlike the other major rivers in the county, which have started to recede, the Snohomish remains above record height, where it’s been for the past 24 hours.
The river is forecasted to start dropping on Friday afternoon, but isn’t expected to reach below the weather service’s action level until Saturday.
Ben Krause, owner of Swans Trail Farm, has been riding out the Snohomish River’s surge, stuck at his property on Rivershore Road, just east of the river where it runs between Interstate 5 and Highway 9.
Krause bought the property as a small dairy farm in 1984 and experienced the historic flood of 1990.
“That was a disaster,” he said over the phone on Friday morning. “That’s where you lose sleep, and you wonder if you’ll still be in business.”
Through the decades, the county has redesigned and updated the levees and dikes in the area, lowering his worries, Krause said as he waits for the water to recede.
When the storm predictions first hit, Krause and his staff kicked into action, readying the 125-acre property, which includes U-Pick apple orchards, pumpkin patches, strawberry fields, cows, chickens, goats and horses, for the flood.
In the two days they prepared, they “burrito rolled” all the driveways and up and down where the river flows by the property, laying down plastic, putting down gravel and folding the plastic over to act like a giant sandbag.
It’s just a waiting game to see how the fields fare, Krause said. The faster the water drops and gets off the roots of his apple trees, the better.
And while Krause isn’t overcome with worry for his own farm, he’s been thinking about friends with properties east of Highway 9, which was shut down around 1 p.m. Thursday due to floodwaters and was hit much harder than the area along Rivershore Road.
“As soon as I get out, I want to go over there and help them, but I can’t get out of here,” he said.
‘Another atmospheric river is taking aim’
National Weather Service Dev McMillian said the county is out of the woods regarding the moderate to heavy rain that has fallen through the week — but more rain is predicted to arrive Sunday night.
“Another atmospheric river is taking aim at the area,” McMillian said Friday over the phone. “As these rivers are still a bit elevated, they could see the potential rises as this next disturbance comes through.”
The Everett area is predicted to reach up to an inch of rain Sunday night, with Arlington reaching up to half an inch. Farther east, the weather service predicts Skykomish and Darrington to receive up to three-quarters of an inch of rain.
“This disturbance doesn’t seem to be as sustained as the previous rainfall that we have seen earlier this week,” McMillian said. “So if we do see river flooding return, [forecasts don’t] appear to be as severe as we’ve seen recently.”
Eliza Aronson: 425-339-3434; eliza.aronson@heraldnet.com; X: @ElizaAronson.
Eliza’s stories are supported by the Herald’s Environmental and Climate Reporting Fund.
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