Traffic was moving along I-5 again Friday, when the freeway was reopened after four days submerged in floodwaters.
State workers opened all lanes of I-5 through Chehalis just before noon.
Trucks had been allowed through starting Thursday, but they had to move slowly along only one lane in each direction, state Department of Transportation officials said.
The floodwaters that had covered the freeway since Monday started receding Wednesday evening after state workers breached a levee.
By Thursday afternoon, the retreating waters revealed less highway damage than engineers had feared.
“Our crews have been working around the clock, and getting I-5 open this fast after the flood is a great accomplishment,” state Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond said. “We’ve still got work to do to get all of our highways back open to traffic.”
A 20-mile stretch of I-5 from Milepost 88 to Milepost 68 had been closed completely since Monday night, when the flooded Chehalis River inundated the freeway with water 10 feet deep in places.
More work remains to get the freeway up to full capacity; the reopened stretch of I-5 normally handles about 54,000 vehicles a day.
Six deaths in the state have been blamed on this week’s severe weather and subsequent power outages, said Maj. Gen. Timothy Lowenberg, the state’s emergency management director. That figure includes two people who died in a Cascade Range avalanche.
At least one person also was missing, but police in rural Winlock were treating their search for the man as a recovery mission, not a rescue.
Utility crews worked to restore electricity to thousands of people in the region, which was pounded by heavy rain and high wind Sunday and Monday.
Fewer than 30,000 remained in the dark, mostly in Grays Harbor County, and “that number keeps dropping every day,” Lowenberg said. He predicted power could be restored to many of those customers by the end of Friday.
Government and volunteer workers continued delivering food, water, medicine and other relief supplies to storm-damaged areas. Isolated places along the coast, including tribal communities, were being targeted, Lowenberg said.
As of Friday morning, Gov. Chris Gregoire was still awaiting a response to her request for a presidential disaster declaration, which would speed federal assistance to Washington residents.
“Her commitment is to take care of people first,” Lowenberg said. “Of course, we will take care of public infrastructure damage … when we have made sure that people are taken care of.”
In Lewis County, sheriff’s deputies said three people trying to survey the flood damage had to be rescued when they became stranded near the town of Pe Ell.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Reporter Lukas Velush: 425-339-3449 or lvelush@heraldnet.com.
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