‘This was devastating’: Floods in Pullman, Moscow negatively affect businesses

At 6 a.m. Saturday, Alan Hodges walked into Lily Bee’s Boutique, Bridal and High End Consignments and waded through about 4 inches of standing water.

All the wedding gowns, flowers, dresses and more inside the Pullman store that he and his wife, Melanie, have owned for the last 20 years were drenched.

“This was devastating,” Hodges said. “I guess it happened 30 years ago, and we have had floods in the past that were minor compared to that. But I really don’t understand how so much water appeared downtown.”

Meghan Ferrin, the communications coordinator for the city of Pullman, said the National Water Prediction Service released a statement Friday night that the South Fork Palouse River was only supposed to crest at 6.5 feet , which classifies as minor flooding.

Then, shortly before midnight, the estimate jumped by 2 feet. At 7 a.m. Saturday morning, the South Fork Palouse River in Pullman reached 8.82 feet. The record is 11.8, which was set in 1910.

“When the bridge moved, it’s a sign that the water levels have gotten really high,” Ferrin said, referring to the Pine Street pedestrian bridge which is designed to detach from abutments in floods. “And that was about when we started to think, ‘Oh, we’ve seen a major rise in the last two hours.’ And then it continued to rise overnight.”

Hodges said he went to check his store around 8:30 p.m. Friday and noted that the water level wasn’t high enough to cause any damage to the inside of his store. He even said it appeared to be a couple feet “below what would be a concern.” Just hours later, when he returned, he said there was about 2 feet of water in front of his store off Main Street, which made it so he couldn’t even open Lily Bee’s front door. Since those early hours, he, his wife and his employees have been working to move everything out of the store to somewhere warm and dry.

Mang Lian is the owner of a sushi restaurant that planned to open around April 1. The damage caused by the flooding has cost him thousands of dollars and left him upset not just with the situation, but with city leaders. His inspection was set for Monday. Lian said he wasn’t informed in time of the flooding and now he has no clue what of his works and what doesn’t.

“I thought spending $9.8 million to redo the drainage system in the city and the whole downtown area was supposed to eradicate this kind of a problem, but obviously it did not,” Hodges said. “And my wife saw one of the city workers unplugging drains this morning, and she said, ‘Yeah, you’re a little bit too late.’”

Ferrin said the city undertook, as part of its downtown revitalization project in 2024, an effort to make “underlying infrastructure improvements” by installing better drainage in low -elevation areas and repairing older infrastructure beneath Main Street to handle any potential flooding. She believes this has done a great deal to keep excess water out of downtown.

But Lian believes there wasn’t a prompt enough response from the city on Friday night and that its perceived inaction should be considered some sort of negligence. Hodges agrees.

“I just think it was a real lack of expertise on the city part,” Hodges said. “They should have had somebody down here at 2 o’clock in the morning knowing that this flooding was happening. They had one pump running when I got here at 6, and they expanded that to four, and now the street is dry. It looks like nothing ever happened out front, except for the inside of the building.”

Ferrin said that the city had a minimum of four public works staff working at all times during the flooding, but they were stretched across the city. She said an event like the flood last night draws in not just public works crewmembers, but other departments, including the fire and police. They’ve worked diligently all night long and day to ensure that the safety of residents was upheld, she said. Ferrin said no injuries were reported from the floods.

She said crews were efficient and able to communicate to the community early on in their process. As for complaints from business owners, Ferrin said the city’s goal is to keep everyone safe and that they are responding as efficiently and effectively as possible .

When it comes to areas most affected by the flooding, Ferrin pointed to the downtown corridor, Rainey Park, the city play fields, Olson Street, and Grand Avenue . As of 6:20 p.m. Saturday, all of the major thoroughfares in Pullman were open, Ferrin said.

“The way that Pullman is built, it’s four hills with a bunch of low -lying road infrastructure in between,” Ferrin said. “And so those areas where the hills meet, are the areas that are the most likely to flood in an event like this.”

The neighboring city of Moscow also faced floods early Saturday. Paradise Creek crested at 11.54 feet at 6 a.m. Saturday, said Steve Bodnar, a National Weather Service meteorologist. The previous record was 11.4 feet, which was set in 2019. As of 6 p.m. Saturday the level was at 9.42 feet outside of Moscow, still above flood stage, which is 9.2 feet.

In Pullman, water levels along the South Fork Palouse River registered at 6.10 feet as of 6:20 p.m. on Saturday. Bodnar said water levels are receding across the board and should continue to do so as the night draws on.