Flood Cleanup Continuing
Washington’s 20 flood-stricken counties scrambled Tuesday to get roads cleared and open, help swamped homeowners get back on their feet and deal with debris from rampaging rivers.
President Clinton scheduled a Northwest tour today. His first stop after arrival in Portland is to be in the Woodland-Kalama area of southwestern Washington, where more than 2,000 people were evacuated.
“Maybe he can get under the house and pull out some of the wet insulation,” Woodland homeowner Steve Hanson said Tuesday as he surveyed damage to his home of 31 years.
Damage estimates Tuesday were sketchy and incomplete.
But scores of homes were destroyed by the flooding that began last Wednesday, hundreds more were damaged and serious road and bridge damage was reported in the 20 counties declared disaster areas by Gov. Mike Lowry. Garfield County was added to the list Tuesday.
A second flood-related Washington state death was reported Monday when the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Department confirmed the discovery of the body of Mark J. Slocum, 45, of Snohomish, who had been reported missing Sunday. Slocum, who apparently lost control of his truck during the flooding, was found in a field near his partly submerged vehicle.
Private-property owners hit by the floods were going directly to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for grants and low-interest loans. While private-property damage figures often are used to help qualify a region for government disaster relief, Clinton issued a disaster declaration immediately in this case and counties weren’t required to come up with preliminary damage figures.
Total damages are expected to exceed the $120 million in public outlays for non-road damage in the November 1990 floods, said Tim D’Acci at the National Flood Insurance Program.
By Tuesday, about $48 million in damages had been reported by 17 counties to the federal-state disaster field office in Olympia, said Jim Erickson of the state Emergency Management Division.
The 17 counties reported 155 homes destroyed, 856 with major damage and 1,571 with minor damage, Erickson said, and “those figures could go up - there are a lot of places they can’t get into.”
In the Palouse, cleanup continued Tuesday. A small army of volunteers, including Washington State University athletes, picked up sandbags in Pullman and the city of Palouse, where waterlogged Main Street was reopened.
About a dozen stranded residents there have told county officials their homes were destroyed.
The Whitman County treasurer’s office had received about 150 reports of flood damage by late Tuesday. Damage totaled more than $1 million among the 40 percent or so who gave dollar figures. The county has estimated damage to roads at more than $1.5 million.
FEMA is scheduled to open a disaster relief assistance center in Walla Walla at 1 p.m. today, and a mobile center is expected to come to the Palouse sometime later.
Meanwhile, victims are asked to report damages to the Whitman County treasurer’s office at 397-6230 and FEMA at (800) 462-9029.
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