After The Deluge Floodwaters Receding In Western Washington

Mayor Timothy Bates had two things to take care of when the rising waters of the Skagit River threatened: evacuating his town and clearing out his downtown market.

Bates had anticipated Wednesday’s deluge by removing most of the merchandise from his store. He spent Thursday sweeping out the debris the flood had left behind.

“You start getting used to it after a while,” Bates said while hosing down his store’s concrete floor. “You can almost start to anticipate it once you’ve lived here long enough.”

Residents left 50 to 55 homes in the downtown area when floodwaters threatened Wednesday.

City services had been restored to all but 10 houses by midday Thursday, and most residents were back in their homes.

Floodwaters were receding in most parts of Western Washington late Thursday, but the National Weather Service said heavy rains expected tonight from a new weather system could send rivers on the march again. Scattered clouds and a few showers were the rule Thursday, with cooler temperatures halting runoff from mountain snowpacks.

“We’ll be ready when it happens,” Bates said. “We’ve been through it before. I just hope it won’t be too bad.”

This week’s floods apparently took one life. A duck hunter was missing and presumed drowned in floodwaters of the Snoqualmie River near Monroe.

The flooding Skagit River damaged a railroad bridge between Mount Vernon and Burlington, forcing closure of the bridge for at least a week.

Flood warnings remained in effect Thursday for the Skagit, Snohomish and Snoqualmie rivers but all three had crested and begun to fall by late afternoon.

“It forced me out,” Maryann Lee, a Hamilton resident who spent Wednesday night in a shelter, told the Skagit Valley Herald. “I had to have one of the firemen drive me out in a van.”

“The water came knocking on the door but I didn’t get any inside,” said Hamilton postmistress Annette Frye. “I didn’t have to close and the mail still got through. You know it’s going to happen every four or five years. Now it’s just cleanup time.”

Debris piled up along the post office in this community of 248 people included tree stumps, propane tanks, produce and, Frye said, even some salmon.

“It can get scary, having to evacuate and all. The current comes in pretty strong through town,” she said.

The flooding Skagit damaged the Burlington Northern railroad bridge between Mount Vernon and Burlington, undermining a pier on one of the 13 spans, railroad spokesman Gus Melonas said. The level of the bridge dropped at least five feet.

The 800-foot bridge will be closed while the pier is rebuilt, Melonas said.

The closure affects 10 freight trains a day and two Amtrak trains. Melonas said the freight trains may be rerouted.

Amtrak passengers between Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia, were bused Thursday, Amtrak spokeswoman Dawn Soper said.

A helicopter and dive team searched Thursday for Dean Savoy, a 35-year-old duck hunter from the Renton area, who was swept away by floodwaters of the Snoqualmie near Monroe.

The man and a 28-year-old friend were hunting in a field Wednesday when the floodwaters overtook them, Snohomish County sheriff’s spokeswoman Jan Jorgensen said. Rising water filled Savoy’s hip waders. The younger man, David Taylor, was able to shed his boots and escape.

Don McKeehen, spokesman for the Skagit County Public Works Department in Mount Vernon, said the sandbagging around Mount Vernon was called off about midday Thursday as the flood threat eased.

“It’s getting better and better, much better than we anticipated,” McKeehen said.

Shelters at a local school and church were closed, although they could be reopened if the rains returned, he said.

The Skagit near Mount Vernon crested a few feet above major flood stage at 33 feet late Thursday afternoon.

Upstream, the river crested near Concrete at 39.5 feet just before midnight Wednesday, less than a foot below the crest of the severe November 1990 floods.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said water stored at Ross and Upper Baker dams greatly reduced the river levels experienced on the Skagit.

High tide backed the flooding Nooksack River up at Bellingham Bay, swamping some houses along the river and the bay shore.

“We’re hoping that as soon as the tide drops, most of this water will rush right out of here,” Dave Ralston, a county road department employee, said Thursday.