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FLOOD STATEMENT
SKAGIT RIVER BASIN
500 AM PDT TUE OCT 21 2003

SKAGIT RIVER NEAR CONCRETE...

FLOOD STAGE: 28.0 FEET. LATEST READING: 41.8 FEET AT 430 AM.

FORECAST: RISING AND CRESTING NEAR 42.5 FEET AROUND 8 AM.
FALLING BELOW FLOOD STAGE WEDNESDAY MORNING.

SKAGIT RIVER NEAR MOUNT VERNON...

FLOOD STAGE: 28.0 FEET. LATEST READING: 28.9 FEET AT 330 AM.

FORECAST: CRESTING NEAR 38.0 FEET AROUND 8 PM THIS EVENING.
FALLING BELOW FLOOD STAGE WEDNESDAY NIGHT.

THE FORECASTED CREST LEVELS ON THE SKAGIT ARE ALL TIME RECORDS.

SEVERE FLOODING IS EXPECTED ALONG THE ENTIRE LENGTH OF THE SKAGIT.

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Think I will make a trip to the radio stations and see how things are going and how long I can keep the transmitters on the air. Will also take some pictures for you and post them later.

We are going to get our feet wet on this one.
 

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Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 10-21-2003, 01:09 PM:
 
Paul: Good luck! And stay safe.
 

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Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 10-21-2003, 02:11 PM:
 
Holler if you need help with anything, Paul.
We had several washouts in the Belfair area last night. Schools were cancelled there... mainly because some of the main roads are cut off now.

Good luck! Don't stand on any hot wires...
 

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Posted by Rachel Gilardi (Member # 1016) on 10-21-2003, 02:45 PM:
 
Good Luck Paul, hope its not bad...
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 10-21-2003, 05:29 PM:
 
PICS
 

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Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 10-21-2003, 06:00 PM:
 
As of now, the river level is up to 29 feet. It is supposed to crest at 38 feet tonight. If you looked at the link Brad posted, these pictures were taken about 2 hours ago - and the pictures of the revetment gives you some idea on what another 9 feet of water is going to come up to in that area.

West Mount Vernon is now being evacuated.

Here is a picture I took from the dike protecting the north-west part of Mount Vernon. It is about 1/4 mile from the station. We can hear the bulldozers at work building it up a little more. We should be OK at the radio stations...unless a dike breaks.





In the past hour, the river rose from 29 feet to 33.5 feet. 4-1/2 feet to go....

[ 10-21-2003, 09:29 PM: Message edited by: Paul G. Thompson ]
 

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Posted by Jason Black (Member # 684) on 10-22-2003, 01:35 PM:
 
Paul,

How ya holding up over there?
 

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Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 10-22-2003, 01:57 PM:
 
Local news:

http://www.king5.com/

quote:

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Rains over, sandbags control Skagit
The downpour is over but the Skagit River was still more than 7 feet above flood stage in Mount Vernon, Wash., Wednesday, and likely will not drop back into its channel upstream until late Thursday or early Friday....Washington SR 9 is closed from South Skagit Highway to Francis Road due to water over the roadway

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quote:

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WESTERN WASHINGTON - The downpour is over but the Skagit River was still more than 7 feet above flood stage in Mount Vernon Wednesday, and likely will not drop back into its channel until late Thursday or early Friday.

Determined sandbagging helped hold down damage, county officials said.

The river's return to normal may be slowed a little by drizzle Wednesday night, said National Weather Service forecaster Chris Burke, but after that there were no big rainstorms in sight.

"No, no, no," he said. "It should be foggy and dry."

Flooding in Mount Vernon was not as bad as had been predicted, Burke said. The river crested here at 36.2 feet, well below the 37.-4-foot record set in 1990. Flooding was more severe upriver in the small community of Concrete, where the waters reached a record 42.2 feet.

As high water receded, flood warnings were still in effect on the Skokomish River in Mason County northwest of Olympia, the Snoqualmie east of Seattle in King County and the Nooksack east of Bellingham in Whatcom County, though all were expected to drop below flood stage Wednesday, the Weather Service said.

Some of the 3,000 evacuated Skagit County residents will likely be able to return to their homes Wednesday, said Ric Boge, a county public works spokesman.

"We still have areas with water in them," he said.

Damage assessment is just beginning, Boge said.

"I know the entire town of Hamilton" - a community of about 300 people upstream from Mount Vernon - "was under water."

It's not yet clear how long sandbags will remain in place, he said.

"That decision will be made later as conditions play out," Boge said. They typically stay in place till forecasters "are confident the river is going to stay below flood stage for the foreseeable future."

Sandbag barriers contained the flood as the river, laden with mud, logs and debris, crested just before midnight Tuesday. Dikes along the river also held, said spokeswoman Frances Ambrose with the county Department of Emergency Management.

"We're pretty well holding steady," she said early Wednesday.

"I think the city of Mount Vernon is safe," said John Pell, an Army Corps of Engineers structural engineer who monitored construction of a sandbag wall downtown.

A state of emergency declared by Lt. Gov. Brad Owen in the absence of Gov. Gary Locke after an earlier round of heavy rains last week remained in effect in Skagit, Whatcom and Clallam counties.

Locke was scheduled to return Wednesday from a trade mission to China, and "I would expect that list to be expanded with a new proclamation," said Mark Stewart, a spokesman at the state emergency operations center in Olympia.

States of emergency also were declared by local officials in Kitsap, Jefferson, Snohomish and Mason counties and in the towns of Shelton and Concrete.

"We don't often get this magnitude of rain that close together," said Brent Bower, hydraulic program manager for the National Weather Service in Seattle. "We really don't have in our records this kind of major flooding in October.

Troops from the Navy base in Everett and the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station joined more than 1,000 civilian volunteers in sandbagging along the Skagit and in Snohomish County, an effort that Ambrose said benefited greatly from clearing skies and warm weather Tuesday.

Mount Vernon residents sandbagged the county courthouse, shops and a big wall that protects the city from high water. The Skagit, which waters some of the state's most productive farmland, threatens to flood nearly every winter.

To the northwest, in Sedro-Woolley, staff and patients were evacuated from United General Hospital. About 80 staff members placed sandbags around the building and 17 patients were taken to Skagit Valley Hospital in Mount Vernon.

To the south, the flooding Stillaguamish River cut off Silvana from the rest of Snohomish County and the local water system quit working Tuesday. Firefighters filled a makeshift plastic pool-like structure with water so residents wouldn't go thirsty, said Christine Colmore, an official with the county's Emergency Management Department.

A massive logjam at the Hewitt Avenue trestle that carries U.S. 2 over the Snohomish River in Everett was cleared by state Transportation Department crews using a hydraulic crane and three track-mounted backhoes.

State road crews also labored to clear roads blocked by mud, rocks, trees and debris. Several roads remained closed because of flood damage and slides from a storm last week.

In 1990, 20 rivers flooded in Western Washington, displacing thousands of people and doing $160 million in damage. That year, the Skagit crested at 40.2 feet in Concrete and 37.4 feet in Mount Vernon. In flooding five years later, the Skagit reached 41.57 feet in Concrete and 37.4 feet in Mount Vernon.

Heavy rains on Monday broke a calendar-day record in Seattle with 5.02 inches at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, well over the old mark of 3.41 inches on Nov. 20, 1959, the National Weather Service said. Sea-Tac records date back to 1931.

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Posted by Chris Hipp (Member # 1788) on 10-22-2003, 02:02 PM:
 
Just get out your SCUBA gear and go for a dive!
 

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Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 10-22-2003, 10:27 PM:
 
John P. covered it very well. His post was extremely accurate. It could have been much worse!

Even with the flood officially past Concrete, the waters remained high at that town, thanks to the U.S.Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps was frantically draining Baker Lake, the reservoir behind Upper Baker Dam to make room for today's expected rain. This meant keeping flows at Concrete as high as 90,000 Cubic Feet per second - still above flood stage. By Wednesday morning, the river was allowed down to 85,000 cfs and 31.5 feet, 3.5 feet above flood stage.

Ross Dam, which holds back a lake that stretches into Canada, almost filled up during the rains on Tuesday. That, too, was being emptied at about 25,000 cfs Tuesday night, although the streams feeding that lake were still pumping in nearly the smae amount of water.

At Mount Vernon, the river rose slowly upward to a crest of 36.2 feet arounf midnight. The crest was a matter of hours, not just a few. The same amount of water went by, but it took longer and never got as high.

And while the crest at Concrete was the largest ever taken, the crest at Mount Vernon was lower than the major floods of 1990 and 1995.

The difference was the Nookachamps basin. In 1990's second flood, the basin was full, so all the new water that flowed in pushed the same volume out the other end. But, as high as the water got Tuesday, there was still more room. If the rain had continued longer, the crest at Mount Vernon would have been later and higher.

Mount Vernon's crest isn't draining as fast as the Concrete crest did. Nearly 8 hours later, the water only receded only by 18 inches. Part of that time may have been due to the tides. At the same time the river was cresting, Skagit Bay was rising. But at about 3:00 a.m. Wednesday the tide reversed making room for the Skagit River to drain.

I know we have some goofy names up here. They alwasy seem to be mispronounced. Paul Harvey (in his commentary today) pronounced it the SKAG-IT River.

That's about it for now.


 

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Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 10-22-2003, 10:49 PM:
 
British Columbia has also been experienceing some heavy flooding as well
 

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