MARYSVILLE — Heavy rain flooded the bottom floor of the Marysville Public Works building on Wednesday afternoon. By Thursday morning, the building was closed to walk-in customers and about 20 staff members were relocated to a vacant city building at Sixth Street and Delta Avenue.
“Our public works building on Columbia Avenue is in very bad shape,” city spokesman Doug Buell said. “There was a significant amount of water and flood damage.”
Water flooded the parking lot during the storm, entered the building and reached heights of six inches inside the building, Buell said. The water ruined carpeting, fixtures and furnishing and found its way into drywall. City staff met Thursday afternoon to access damages.
“The damage is pretty costly,” Buell said. “We haven’t been able to put a dollar number down yet.”
Flooding occurred at several intersections in the city, including 4th Street and State Avenue, at several roadways near Cedarcrest Golf Course and north of 88th and 67th streets. The storm washed out trails in Jennings Memorial Park and Northpointe Park and flooded the Lions Centennial Pavilion cooking shelter at Jennings Memorial Park.
Some rain leaked through the roofs of the Marysville Public Safety Building and the Marysville Public Library but did not cause damage to either building.
The city’s public works crew used three specially equipped trucks to pump out water throughout the night, Buell said. The Marysville Fire Department also helped put out sandbags and blocked flooded roadways.
Storm drain maintenance was recently completed throughout the city and is done on a regular, rotating schedule. The more-than 1½ inches that fell on Marysville during the storm fell on water that was left over from days of successive rainfall and backed up the city’s storm drains.
“Even with all of the storm water maintenance we did there is no system that is designed to handle that amount of rain in a short amount of time,” Buell said.
The city received 45 calls in the 24-hour period since the rainstorm began, he added, but they weren’t all pertaining to flooding.
“There was a group of kids on 4th Street with a sign saying, ‘Soak me’ and they let cars go by and completely splash them,” Buell said.
The Public Works Building will stay closed until further notice. Residents can visit the city website at www.marysvillewa.gov to download forms for planning and building permits, construction inspection, and business and pet licenses.
Amy Daybert: 425-339-3491; adaybert@heraldnet.com.
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