Rain pummels West Side
Rivers overflow, small dam fails; weather officials expect more flooding
SEATTLE – A small dam failed and caused minor flooding in Cosmopolis as heavy rain resulted in flood warnings Wednesday along rivers throughout Western Washington.
The dam at Mill Creek Park in the town about 40 miles west of Olympia collapsed after it was weakened by a falling tree, town officials said. Some streets and nearby houses were flooded with several inches of water. A contractor was hired to repair the dam.
Water also covered several highways and roads around nearby Aberdeen.
Elsewhere in the state, about 200 residents were encouraged to evacuate from areas along the Carbon River near Orting, southeast of Tacoma. North of Seattle, the Snohomish County Public Works Department was bringing sand and sandbags to be picked up by home and business owners at half a dozen fire stations and parks.
No injuries or serious property damage were reported from the wet weather.
Mount Rainier National Park was closed after the main access route, Nisqually Road, was covered with more than 6 inches of floodwater from Kautz Creek in the southwest corner of the park. Rangers used a service road to help evacuate seven guests from the National Park Inn at Longmire on Tuesday night.
The park was closed for months in the fall of 2006 because of flood damage from storms that dumped nearly 18 inches of rain in 36 hours.
Barns at the Evergreen State Fairgrounds in Monroe, east of Everett, were opened as temporary stables for horses, cows and other livestock that had been moved out of floodwaters.
East of Monroe, in Sultan, Don Marshall borrowed a friend’s red kayak and paddled around some flooded houses by the U.S. Highway 2 bridge near the confluence of the Sultan and Skykomish rivers. Sandbags were placed around some downtown businesses, and a stream of residents and business owners filled sandbags from a pile of sand on Main Street.
About 5 to 7 inches of rain had fallen in the 24 hours ending at 11 a.m. Wednesday, and another four to six hours of moderate to heavy rain appeared likely, said Brad Colman, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Seattle.
In populated areas, the 24- and 48-hour totals included 0.95 and 1.10 inches at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, 2.25 and 3 inches in Olympia, 2.20 and 2.50 inches in Centralia, 0.8 and 0.99 in Everett and 0.65 and 0.69 in Bellingham.
The flood warnings included residential areas near the Skagit River around Mount Vernon, 55 miles north of Seattle, and in places where the Snohomish River could top levees near Snohomish, 25 miles northeast of Seattle.
Warnings also were issued for the Naselle, Satsop, Nooksack, Stillaguamish, Skykomish, Tolt, Snoqualmie, Cedar, Carbon, Puyallup and Deschutes rivers, mostly in largely rural areas with low-lying roads and pastures.
Previous rains this month saturated the soil in most areas west of the Cascade Range, raising the risk of rock and mud slides, the weather service reported.