Swollen Rivers Forcing Evacuations Hundreds Must Leave Homes After Heavy Rains In Oregon

Surging rivers flooded homes and forced hundreds of evacuations around Oregon Wednesday in the aftermath of a series of rainstorms that drenched the state.

The hardest-hit areas were along the Rogue River in southern Oregon and the Tualatin River in the Portland area, but scattered flooding was also reported in northeast Oregon, south-central Oregon and in the Willamette Valley town of Keizer.

Highway crews were trying to clear landslides that blocked U.S. 101 on the southern Oregon coast nine miles south of Port Orford and state Highway 35 on Mount Hood.

In the city of Rogue River, homes along seven miles of the waterway were evacuated because of flooding. Seventeen additional neighborhoods were evacuated in the general area.

Dozens of houses along the river and its tributaries were being flooded.

A Red Cross shelter was set up in the Medford Armory.

There was no exact count of how many people were evacuated or how many homes were flooded.

“We’re going to take our chances,” said Karla Nelson, who was trapped at her parents’ house in Grants Pass by high water crossing a frontage road.

Her parents, Archie and Evelyn Queen, have lived along the Rogue River for the past 20 years but have never seen the water so high, she said. The water was within 5 feet of the house, and residents were ordered to be ready to evacuate, but Nelson remained optimistic.

“My parents survived the ‘64 earthquake in Anchorage,” she said. “Disaster seems to follow my parents.”

Gov. John Kitzhaber declared emergencies in Jackson and Josephine counties in southern Oregon, Lake County in south-central Oregon and Clackamas County near Portland.

National guardsmen were assisting state police, Jackson County sheriff’s deputies and local police and firefighters in the evacuations, some accomplished by boat. By Wednesday evening, the Rogue River had crested.

In Ashland, just south of Medford, residents were advised to boil their drinking water after flooding caused contamination of the water system. Drinking water was also being brought in by truck.

In northern Oregon, the Tualatin River was flooding dozens of homes, while other neighborhoods were cut off by flooded roads and residents had to use boats or muddy foot trails for transportation.

Many of the same residences along the river were inundated with water during flooding last February that affected mostly the northern part of the state.

In other flooding:

Scattered homes near Pendleton in northeast Oregon were reported to be surrounded by water from the Umatilla River.

A dozen homes were flooded in Keizer, 42 miles southwest of Portland, when the Pudding River flowed into a low-lying subdivision.

Much of the downtown area of the small town of Lakeview in south-central Oregon was covered with water.