Weather service warns of landslides, debris flows

The National Weather Service has warned of potential landslides and debris flows in the greater Vancouver and Portland areas.

The warning also applies to the western Columbia River Gorge, the Interstate 5 corridor in Cowlitz County, coastal areas and much of western Oregon and Washington.

“The ground is so saturated,” Dave Willson, lead forecaster with the National Weather Service in Portland, said late Monday night. “There’s lots of vulnerabilities out there.”

With heavy rainstorms and rising snow levels expected tonight and through late Friday, people, buildings and roads below steep slopes, canyons and stream mouths are in the greatest danger.

People also should be alert for river or stream flows that suddenly become muddy, and if the flow quickly increases or decreases.

That could mean the flow is blocked upstream and that a debris flow may soon rush downstream.