King County flood damage coming into focus

The toll and wreckage left behind by record rainfall in Western Washington last month is coming into clearer view, with damages ticking upward alongside a growing uncertainty for the years ahead, public officials from across King County say.

A group of mayors and county staff gathered Tuesday to speak with Washington’s Democratic Sen. Patty Murray and take stock of the floods. They discussed what worked and did not within the machinations of local government and began to guess how to avoid similar disasters in the future.

Tukwila Mayor Thomas McLeod noted his city, like others in the county, will need major upgrades to its flood protection soon. But from where the money will come or how it will be designed to last remains unclear. He expressed discomfort and concern for the years ahead.

These cities are sure to need federal help, the mayors and county officials told the senator. Local and state funding will not be nearly enough to recover, let alone guard against new floods. On Wednesday, Gov. Bob Ferguson requested $21 million in federal aid for flood victims.

Murray remained largely silent at the roundtable discussion. But she impressed upon those around her a willingness to use her leverage at the federal level to track down additional resources

“I’ve been through disasters before, and everybody’s on the ground with you the day it happens,” Murray said. “And then, a month later, when we start seeing where the real needs are, it’s like ‘Where’d everybody go?’ ”

Tallying the damage

Since the county opened its emergency operations center on Dec. 8, each of its largest rivers reached their highest levels of flood danger, said Emergency Director Brendan McCluskey. Waters forced the closure of numerous highways and local roads and cut off two communities.

About 75 homes were destroyed or suffered major damage, McCluskey said. Hundreds more suffered moderate or minor damage. Around 100 people needed emergency rescues, 100 more required shelter and thousands more were evacuated.

County facilities alone tallied some $53 million in damage, McCluskey said.

Damage countywide is sure to creep into the billions, County Executive Girmay Zahilay said.

And so far, the county has $1.5 million for the recovery effort, alongside the state’s $2.5 million, Zahilay said. Drops in the bucket.

This is the beginning of a long road of building back, Zahilay said.

Perhaps the largest swath of damage stemmed from two levee breaches, at stretches of flood barriers with a history of breaks and repeated red flags raised over the years. First, on Dec. 17, a saturated earthen levee in Tukwila tore open, and waters from the Green River flooded into a largely industrial zone.

Early the next morning, a stretch of temporary flood barriers along Pacific City Park in South King County broke open, and the White River poured into residential neighborhoods. Emergency officials scrambled to rouse hundreds from their beds to evacuate. City officials now estimate the floods in Pacific damaged some 220 homes. Some residents have yet to move back into their waterlogged homes and apartments.

Now, many residents in Pacific are wondering what options they have moving forward. Help has been sporadic, if it has been available at all. Some are even considering legal options, including suing the city, county or federal government.

What worked?

Challenging as these floods were for the region, Zahilay called the response and partnership between local and regional agencies inspiring. Certainly, a few things did unfold fortunately.

For both levee breaches, emergency crews were close at hand as floodwaters started pouring in. They were able to launch evacuations immediately and begin plugging the holes.

Josh Kubo, an environmental scientist with King County, saw when the water first broke through the flood barriers in Pacific in the early morning hours of Dec. 18. He and another worker began rushing through the neighborhood, knocking on doors and urging people to leave.

“In the course of 45 minutes, it went from a trickle to a full-blown breach,” Kubo said.

While conditions degraded frighteningly fast, Kubo said the emergency crews worked together quickly. Everybody knew their role and coordinated amazingly, he said.

Kent Mayor Dana Ralph expressed pride in the speed at which emergency crews brought equipment and materials in to plug the levee breach. The flooding, at least in her community, was under control relatively quickly, which offers a glimpse of hope within the broader disaster.

But not everything worked quite so smoothly.

What didn’t?

For starters, county and city officials might have seen these breaches coming.

The Desimone levee in Tukwila and the stretch of flood barriers in Pacific have had problems for years that local and county officials knew about. City officials have repeatedly lobbied the county to fix them. The flood barriers in Pacific are meant to be temporary. But they were first installed in 2009 and then expanded a few years later, so they have been made to stand much longer than their useful lifespan, Pacific Mayor Vic Kave said.

“This was completely preventable,” Kave said.

Once the alarm sounded in the Tukwila-Kent area, the panic and fear caused by the evacuation warnings did more damage than the floodwaters, Ralph said.

Initially, around 46,000 people were told to immediately leave the area, though the evacuation notice was eventually narrowed to a much smaller and largely industrial or retail area. But the damage was done, Ralph said.

Now, major businesses with millions of dollars worth of equipment are wondering whether they will be caught in the next flood, Ralph said. They are wondering if they want to stay.

“It’s not physical damage, it’s emotional damage,” Ralph said. “We are going to be dealing with that for a really long time.”

The county’s flood barriers must be repaired, yes, the mayors agreed. But more work must be done. Gathering sediment in the rivers means less water is needed now to reach flood levels.

Engineers and flood experts caution against an overreliance on levees and similar barriers to protect against raging river waters. But buying existing properties to set levees back or restore lost flood plains to alleviate water pressure would create a new set of economic challenges, the mayors said.

There are no simple solutions, they acknowledge, but without sweeping action, the widespread flood risk remains.