Storm brings rain and minor flooding

A powerful storm packing heavy rains brought rising waters and minor local flooding alongside streams that run through Mill Creek earlier this week, but otherwise, the city and surrounding area came out just fine.

The storm that brought heavy rains and high winds to the Puget Sound region on Monday, Oct. 20, caused the National Weather Service to issue flood warnings on 11 rivers in Western Washington, including the Snohomish and Skykomish east of Mill Creek.

In Mill Creek and its immediate vicinity, while some streams swelled, no major problems were reported.

By noon Monday, North Creek had overflowed some of its banks at the park behind Mill Creek City Hall. Police chief Bob Crannell was at the park watching the swelling creek.

“It’s come up a lot in the last hour,” he said Monday afternoon.

Twenty-four hours later, creek waters had receded back to normal, as skies cleared.

Crannell, Mill Creek’s emergency coordinator, said he heard no reports of any damage from flooding within the city limits.

Mill Creek public works director Doug Jacobson said a few drains around the city were clogged, but city crews cleared the drains and prevented further flooding.

One stream culvert, on 164th Street SE for North Creek, backed up temporarily with debris but was later cleared up. No other problems with any stream culverts were reported.

No calls for assistance in the Mill Creek or Bothell areas were made to the American Red Cross of Snohomish County, according to spokesperson Kris Krischano. The agency had been busy Monday setting up shelters elsewhere in the county to house flood victims, however.

Snohomish County Fire District 7 also reported no calls for flood-related assistance in the greater Mill Creek area, according to deputy chief Gary Meek.

“The Clearview/Mill Creek area is at the top end of the hill, so we don’t have too many problems with flooding,” Meek said.

Rainfall varied greatly throughout the Puget Sound region. While Seattle-Tacoma International Airport reported a single-day record of 5.02 inches and 7.2 inches of rain fell in Shelton, in Mason County, Paine Field in Everett reported just an inch and a half of rain on Monday.