How we covered the record-breaking flood

EVERETT — Hello, lovely people of Snohomish and Island counties,

Last week was a lot. And I’m beginning to think this week will be too.

I wasn’t able to get my newsletter, Field Notes, because The Daily Herald’s tried and true photographer, Olivia Vanni, and I spent four days driving around Snohomish County trying to cover as much ground as possible to give you boots-on-the-ground reporting of how record-breaking flooding was affecting our communities, while also making sure we were keeping up with evolving evacuation orders, road closures and river forecasts.

I want to use this edition of Field Notes to try to trace last week’s reporting path, because truthfully, it’s still one big rainy adrenaline and caffeine-fueled blur to me. But first, I need to give a huge thanks to Olivia.

She’s been at the Herald for over seven years, and I could not have done last week without her. It’s no secret that the Herald has gone through a lot in recent years — new owners, new publishers, a new office and of course, the layoffs.

When a paper loses reporters and photographers who have documented communities for years, the publication loses institutional knowledge that supports in-depth, educated coverage.

When the atmospheric river hit last week and Olivia and I were sent out to cover the flooding, Olivia knew exactly where to go, having covered flooding events in years prior. She knew the backroads to check on, who to call for firsthand status reports, and when to give me a mini Diet Coke so I didn’t fall over from exhaustion.

This is why supporting local journalism matters, because if it had just been me out there, or a photographer who had just started a year ago at the Herald like me, our coverage of the flood would have likely been much different. Having strong local publications that support journalists for years means we can give you the coverage you need and deserve.

I’ll get off my soapbox now. Now, let’s remember last week.

Monday, Dec. 8.

It was a busy day working on stories at the office. Checking forecasts. Making possible coverage plans with Olivia. I left the office dubious that the weather system would fulfill the chatter in the air about massive flooding. (Mother Nature said, “You thought.”)

Tuesday, Dec. 9.

After checking the National Weather Service river flow gauges at 7 a.m., Olivia and I headed to Snohomish.

Looking over the metal fence on First Street, the pathway along the Snohomish River was still mostly clear, with just large puddles of water, nothing someone from the Pacific Northwest would call crazy.

The river was full, though, with piles of tree branches rushing past in the muddy stream.

I left my green Subaru parked along the holiday-light-decked street of downtown Snohomish and hopped in Olivia’s green Subaru. We headed to the eastern edge of town, where Lincoln Avenue turns to Old Snohomish Monroe Road.

Past the neon orange “ROAD CLOSED” signs, a quickly growing pile of fire trucks and emergency vehicles emitted a flurry of red and blue siren lights, contrasting against the dark gray morning skies.

The Snohomish River had breached its banks at that site, filling the parking lot on the south side of the road. Olivia pointed out the field adjacent to the road, telling me the cows in the pasture would always seek refuge from floodwaters on a small hill the farmer had constructed for that exact reason.

Press badges flapping in the wind, we walked down the road, documenting two people getting rescued from a car that had gotten stuck in the water on the road, briefly talking to the battalion chief on site.

Snohomish County Regional Fire & Rescue safely retrieved both people, and then, Olivia and I headed out on Highway 2.

We pulled off on a road near Sultan, another place Olivia had tucked into her mind from years of reporting, and stood awe-struck in front of a red fence covered in a line of pine needles two feet off the ground where the Skykomish River had surged the night before and evidently covered the cul-de-sac with water.

In downtown Sultan, we walked across the bridge on Mann Road, watching cars and trucks gamble if they would make it through the water filling the road as Olivia flew her drone to capture the scene.

Before heading home under patchy blue skies, we circled back to Lincoln Avenue in Snohomish. The road we had walked just three hours before had been swallowed by the river. We talked to families moving belongings out of their garages, hoping for the best as forecasts continued to predict that the second wave of the atmospheric river would hit harder that night.

Wednesday, Dec. 10.

Olivia and I started the day out at the Everett Animal Shelter, where people were lined up in the rain to offer temporary housing to animals as the nonprofit evacuated from the building on Smith Island.

Olivia photographed a woman taking brother and sister black lab mixes named Holly and Jolly, and then we drove to Ebey Island, where people were also preparing to evacuate.

We stopped by a house where a woman was helping her uncle and a few other family members pack up things, telling us she had spent her Sweet 16 at the house.

On the other side of the island, we talked to the Lunas family, who were rounding up eight horses to take to one of their family members’ properties in Arlington. Mini chickens and roosters ran around — I didn’t even know mini chickens and roosters existed.

Oliva and I went back to Sultan, where the Skykomish had crept up, covering blocks of downtown. Walking the streets, we talked to an old woman named Janet who had lived in her house for over 50 years. Unworried, she and her dog, Lucky, were standing on the porch, watching the water come in.

Thursday, Dec. 11.

Olivia and I were in Snohomish before the sun rose. In the eerie dark, standing on the hill looking over Lincoln Avenue, we could see that the river had risen dramatically, above the front steps and garage doors of the people we had talked to the day before.

After texting sources to make sure everyone was safe, we headed out along Rivershore Road, stunned at how high and wide the Snohomish River had gotten. Flying her drone for a few minutes when the rain stopped, Olivia and I looked at the tops of houses under feet of water, with more water streaming down the sides of levees.

We then went back to Sultan, where the water had continued to rise and inundate downtown. We talked to Bob Hammond, an employee at Red Pepper Pizzeria & Pasta, as he led us inside to see the puddled floor of the business.

Then, we returned to the street where the red fence had been covered in pine needles. Now, water hit against it. The whole street was a lake, filled with so much water that households were using boats to get back to their front doors.

We talked to a couple as they unloaded belongings out of the truck and into a small motorboat. While they were used to flooding, this was the worst they’d seen, they said.

Friday, Dec. 12.

My alarm didn’t go off. I woke up at 8:30 a.m., panicked and confused as to why it was already light outside. After texting Olivia while freaking out, I grabbed a random Red Bull from my fridge, too behind to make a pot of coffee, and headed to Monroe to meet her at the fairgrounds, where the Red Cross had set up disaster relief shelters.

On the way, I called (using speaker phone, because safety!) Ben Krause, owner of Swans Trail Farm, who had been riding out the Snohomish River’s surge, stuck at his property on Rivershore Road, just east of the river where it runs between I-5 and Highway 9.

He said he wasn’t too overcome with worry about his property, but was concerned for friends who owned Hidden Meadows, a wedding and event venue east of Highway 9 that was hit much worse by the flooding.

When I got to the Evergreen State Fair Park, I found Olivia and talked to a mom with her two young boys. They had been evacuated from Three Rivers Mobile Park, where their trailer, which had been delivered just three months ago, was now underwater.

A yellow toothbrush tucked into her hair, she tried to corral the five-year-old as he bounced around the parking lot, stopping momentarily to look through Olivia’s viewfinder as she photographed his brother.

After talking to people, we holed up in the fairgrounds administration office (THANK YOU to the staff who let us barge in for power outlets). I wrote an update of the day, and within two hours, we had a 1,000-word story and fresh photos uploaded online.

I drove halfway home, stopping in Bothell to work through edits and check emails, before signing out for the weekend.

Monday, Dec. 15.

I don’t think I really slept Sunday night. The pit in my stomach wouldn’t go away as I tried to untangle my thoughts and create a plan to cover the aftermath of the devastation. When do I text my sources? How do I ask if I can interview them? They just went through significant trauma. How do I do my job without adding to what they are going through?

I didn’t have much time to think on Monday morning after our team meeting because the National Weather Service had issued a high wind warning for the county.

While I started writing this on Monday, power outages shot through the county. It seemed like every time I got off the phone with the utility district or weather service or refreshed my page, forecasts and the number of people without power had changed.

At the time, the National Weather Service had forecasted that winds could get up to 65 mph Tuesday night.

I worked from home, simultaneously texting and Google chatting my coworkers as they navigated the office losing, regaining and losing power through the afternoon.

The Snohomish Public Utility District sent out crews, and spokesperson Aaron Swaney encouraged people to prepare for multi-day outages.

I got a call from Mick Stocker, owner of Hidden Meadows, who said Olivia and I could come out on Tuesday to talk to him and his wife about the damage the property was facing. I threw the assignment into my phone, uploaded the first iteration of this post and made myself a fantastic dinner of a bean and cheese quesadilla.

Tuesday, Dec. 16.

I don’t want to count how many PB&Js I’ve consumed in the past seven days.

At 9 a.m., I was bouncing between calling the National Weather Service for wind updates, Aaron Swaney at the utility district for power outage updates and trying to make myself a sandwich and coffee before running out the door to drive from Seattle to Hidden Meadows in Snohomish.

I found out the Stocker family, who owns Hidden Meadows, isn’t the only Stocker family in the Snohomish Valley. The couple I talked to this morning is the fifth generation of Stockers, many of whom own businesses around their in the valley. I accidentally drove to Choice Turf– one Stocker family business— and Olivia drove to Stocker Farms – another Stocker family business– before calling Mick and telling him I couldn’t find him or Olivia anywhere.

Thankfully, the Stocker family likes to stay close to each other, and within 10 minutes, we were at the right place.

The back of the property looked like a lake, and across the inundated fields we could see the top of the levee that the Snohomish River had come over.

After walking around the property and talking to the family, I drove to the office, where I locked myself in the one conference room our new office has and wrote tomorrow’s centerpiece about Hidden Meadows.

And now I am deep breathing, adding more to this letter to upload online and send out tomorrow.

Shameless self-promotion, if you made it this far, sign up for my newsletters! They’re usually much shorter than this, I promise. I might need a week-long nap at some point, but I love what I do and I’m honored I get to cover Snohomish County. Email me your questions, complaints and ideas for what stories I should dig into.

Until next time,

Eliza Aronson

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.