Washington flooding leaves cleanup

Dirt and wood debris are shown washed by recent flooding up against a The Roadside Inn Tavern on U.S. Highway 12 east of Morton. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

An aerial view of the flood waters surrounding Washington State Route 9 on Friday in Snohomish. (AP Photo/The Herald, Kevin Nortz)

All of the region's rivers are forecast to be back below flood stage by today, allowing evacuated residents to return home to assess damage.

This week's flooding doesn't appear to be nearly as devastating as the deluge that hit Lewis, Thurston and several other counties in December 2007. Flooding was reported in Centralia and Chehalis, but the Boistfort Valley and rural communities of Adna and Curtis, hit hard in 2007, were largely spared. Residents reported minor flooding in Bucoda. Flooding in Rochester and the surrounding farmlands doesn't appear to be as bad as in 2007, said Thurston County Fire Marshal Joe Butler.

A 20-mile stretch of Interstate 5 between Grand Mound and Napavine reopened at noon Friday, less than 48 hours after the Washington State Department of Transportation had closed it Wednesday night. The freeway was shut down for four days during the December 2007 flooding.

About 109 people spent Thursday night at Red Cross shelters in Centralia, Lewis County Commissioner Bill Schulte said.

''I think the flooding in 2007 was worse," said Shulte, who had 7 feet of water in his Dryad-area home on the North Fork of the Chehalis River in 2007 but stayed dry this year.

On Friday, residents of Bucoda in southern Thurston County began returning home after the worst flooding of the Skookumchuck River since 1996.

''Most of it has already receded around there," Mayor Kathy Martin said. "There's still a few areas that have water."

Tono Road remains closed, and the rushing water damaged several city streets, she said.

The town was quiet Friday afternoon; several homes had sandbags stacked in front of their garages.

Dave Myers was pumping out more than a foot of water that had become trapped under his rental home. "We've been here for four hours trying to pump it out," he said. "It'll probably take all night."

Across the street, Charles Lehman said floodwaters seeped through the floorboards, ruining the carpet and the wall insulation near the floor. He evacuated with his wife and two children and was relieved to come home and find their six koi alive in the aquarium.

''I lost everything in my garage," he said. "It was pretty brutal."

Elsewhere, Mike Peroni, a farmer in the Boistfort Valley, which saw unprecedented flooding 13 months ago, said he hasn't heard of any reports of property damage in the area. Water covered roads and filled low-lying farmland, he said.

''We dodged a bullet," Peroni said. "There were definitely circumstances 13 months ago that compounded the issues up here, and hopefully we won't see that combination again."

During the 2007 flooding, exceptionally heavy rains in and around Willapa Hills caused a torrent of rainwater to flow into the river basin. Log debris dammed up huge volumes of water, which surged forward with great force after breaking free, swamping homes with several feet of water in some places.

Peroni, whose home was flooded and whose farmland was covered with inches of mud, said he has pretty much recovered from the 2007 flood. But he added that the anxiety returns around the community with every report of rising waters.

''You can see and read it on the faces of everyone out here," he said.

The hardest-hit areas in Lewis County appear to be in north Centralia and areas of Chehalis around the airport.

''It's funny. It's such a different flood," said Debbie Campbell, executive director of the United Way of Lewis County. "It's not hitting anything that was the norm from last year."

She said local governments, emergency responders and residents were more prepared this time.

Helping victims

Organizations continued to mobilize their volunteer forces and donation drives to provide as much help as possible when the time comes. The Weyerhaeuser Company Foundation has donated $50,000 and TransAlta donated $10,000 to assist residents with flooding recovery. Campbell said her office has started a volunteer list and will begin accepting items to help flood victims, but that mobilization still is a day or so away because residents need to return home to assess the damage.

She said the organization will not accept clothing this time and noted that the best items to contribute are money, gift cards and cleaning supplies.

Morton and Pe Ell remain under a boil-water advisory. Wal-Mart donated 15 pallets of bottled water to be split between both communities, Campbell said.

The county's eastern side was hit hard. Several homes in Packwood, more than 12 homes in Randle and 30 to 40 homes in Glenoma sustained flood damage, said Laura Hanson, a spokeswoman with the Lewis County emergency operations center. "It's still pretty unstable conditions as far as slides are concerned" in the area, she said.

Thurston County opened a flood-assistance center in Rochester Friday morning but had seen only two flood victims as of noon, county development services official Tim Rubert said.

The assistance center at 10140 U.S. Highway 12, Rochester, will be open 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. today and Sunday. The phone number is 360-273-8114.

Traffic flow resumes

The state Department of Transportation reopened a 20-mile section of Interstate 5 through Chehalis-Centralia on Friday to the relief of thousands of truckers and other drivers.

When the Chehalis River crested Thursday night, the freeway flooding was much less than expected and less severe than in December 2007, when the freeway was shut down for four days, said Don Wagner, DOT regional administrator for the Southwest Region.

He said the floodwaters came within 1 inch of overtopping a levee near the freeway at Exit 79 in Centralia.

Part of the freeway was closed Wednesday night.

Each day the main route between Portland and Seattle is shut down, about 10,000 trucks are stymied and an estimated $10 million to $12 million in commerce is lost, said DOT state maintenance engineer Chris Christopher said.

A convoy of hundreds of freight trucks was escorted through the cordoned-off freeway area before noon Friday from both directions. Once the truck-traffic congestion was relieved, the freeway was opened to all vehicles.

Butler, Thurston County's fire marshal, said the county has an $811,000 federal grant available to help families in flood-prone Independence Valley and the Deschutes River watershed to raise their homes to protect against future floods. That's enough money to help about 47 families, but only six of 60 high-risk homes in the two areas have applied for the money so far. "Maybe we'll have more interest in the program after this week," Butler said.