If you think weather experts were crying wolf when they predicted major flooding over the weekend, think again.
Jennifer Buchanan / The Herald
Near Darrington, a handful of homes in the Sauk Prairie Road area are at increased risk after weekend flooding.
“The river changed course, eating away at the river banks, threatening homes,” said Mike McCallister, Snohomish County Emergency Management coordinator.
So much of the Sauk’s riverbank was washed away it would be impossible to repair with riprap, he said.
“Evacuation may be the only answer in the next storm,” he said, and then made reference to the river’s sensitive designation. “It’s a Wild and Scenic River, so there’s not much we can do.”
Another trouble area is on the Sultan River where a landslide has created a 20-foot-high dam. McCallister said emergency management is concerned about what the trees and boulders would do downstream if the dam was to break loose all at once.
“We’re still not out of the woods in the Robe Valley” outside Granite Falls, either, McCallister said, referring to another trouble spot.
He said the new flood improvement district there did a good job putting sandbags along the South Fork of the Stillaguamish River. The county placed boulders behind the sandbags to reinforce the riverbank. The district was formed after a few homes were wiped out by flooding last year.
Index was another area where sandbag work Friday before flooding hit “protected their town,” McCallister said.
The county, Gold Bar and the Army Corps of Engineers worked to solve another longtime problem area, McCallister added. At Wallace River, they reinforced a dike behind a levee so they didn’t have to drop rock in the river, which can lead to environmental concerns.
“Wallace River was at the top of our list, but now we don’t have to worry about it anymore,” he said, adding that neither do the people in the approximately 150 homes nearby.
As to overall flood damage in Snohomish County, McCallister said few reports have come in. But the rivers were 3- to 4-feet above flood stage, with mostly roads and pastures the only things under water.
McCallister said the weather service gave a realistic projection, but the hard rain just quit suddenly Saturday. “We’d have seen a lot worse problems” if that didn’t happen, he said.
Assistant city editor Steve Powell: 425-339-3427 or powell@heraldnet.com.
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