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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Pend Oreille River Near Flood Stage Flood Expected To Arrive By The End Of The Weekend

Pend Oreille County’s long-anticipated flood is expected to arrive this weekend.

The county Emergency Services Department on Thursday warned residents along the Pend Oreille River and its tributaries to brace for “significant flooding.”

Officials said they expect the Pend Oreille to reach flood stage sometime this weekend and be well above that point by Monday.

“We will be hitting flood stage by the latter part of the weekend, it’s pretty safe to say,” said Mark Cauchy, spokesman for the Pend Oreille County Public Utility District, which monitors the river closely.

Thanks to temperatures 10 to 15 degrees above normal, the Montana runoff is arriving almost a week sooner than officials were predicting just a few days ago.

Volunteers continued to place sandbags today, and mini-storage operators reported brisk demand as homeowners sought a safe haven for their valuables.

“We’ve been getting anywhere from three to six calls a day for mini-storage, but there’s just none available,” said Robert Mollenkopf, one of the owners of Newport Mini Storage.

Tommie Shipton, manager of nearby Pend Oreille Valley Mini Storage, said she still had some space available Thursday.

“It’s getting slim,” Shipton said. “Everybody up here is just panicked about it.”

Mollenkopf said one caller told him she had loaded her possessions into a trailer, ready to be towed when the water comes up. The caller was looking for a rental trailer for another member of her family, he said.

In Cusick, Mayor Paul Haas said he expected a decision to be made today on whether to build a secondary dike to back up the main dike that has protected the city since it was flooded in 1948. The secondary earthen dike along Monumental Road would be designed to hold water on three baseball fields if the main dike fails.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would quickly dump 3,000 cubic yards of fill to create the secondary dike if officials determine it is needed, Haas said.

A weak spot in the main dike has been reinforced with sandbags, but more bags were being added Thursday, the mayor said.

The most immediately threatened areas are low-lying riverfront subdivisions in the Dalkena area, about halfway between Newport and Cusick.

It was mostly in that area that about two dozen homes had flooded basements and other minor damage last June, when the river flow peaked at 102,000 cubic feet per second. The official flood stage is 106,000 cfs.

The flow was expected to be around 100,000 cfs today, and Emergency Services Director JoAnn Boggs said it could be as much as 132,000 cfs by early next week.

If that flow were sustained, the river level at Cusick could rise to an elevation between 2,047 and 2,049 feet - roughly the same elevation as the city’s streets. The top of the dike is 2,052 feet.

Last year’s peak lifted the river elevation at Cusick to 2,043.9 feet. The river level was 2041.4 feet on Thursday.

Officials cautioned riverfront property owners to watch their backs. If they look only out their front windows, they may be outflanked by water that backs up in the river’s numerous sloughs. Several subdivisions may become islands with their access roads under water, county planner Gary Fergen warned.

Other officials warned residents not to let their guard down if the water peaks next week and begins to recede.

“It’s conceivable that we might get another peak in June that could be higher,” Cauchy said.

Bob Schloss, manager of the Albeni Falls Dam near Newport, said he is confident there will be another peak.

“I think it will probably get higher later,” Schloss said, citing “lots of snow and a gut feeling, looking at a lot of years of data.”

He believes a near-record snowpack will produce more than a 132,000 cfs peak.

“We’ve got to have more water coming through than that for the amount of snow we’ve got,” Schloss said.

Federal experts have been predicting a peak flow of 120,000 to 140,000 cfs.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Map of areas that may flood