Heavy rainfall drenched Clark County early Wednesday morning, causing road closures and power outages and pulling a car off the roadway. Meteorologists say there is more rain to come.
No one was hurt when a vehicle was swept off Goodwin Road near the Green Mountain Golf Course at about 5:45 a.m., said Vancouver Fire Department Battalion Chief Kevin Griffee. The driver, who reported the incident, couldn’t get out of the vehicle and a passer-by knocked in the window to help him get out, firefighter Mark Johnston said.
The driver was not injured and the passerby was gone by the time firefighters arrived, the agency said, but the vehicle was overtaken by more than 4 feet of water.
Other people around the county reported water over roadways, fallen trees and power outages throughout the night Tuesday, keeping public works and utilities crews busy fixing the problems.
Nearly an inch of rain fell in the region between 10 p.m. Tuesday and 4 a.m. Wednesday, with the hardest downpour between 2 and 4 a.m., according to the National Weather Service. The weather was drier during the day Wednesday.
At the storm’s peak, 2,300 Clark Public Utilities customers were left without electricity, about 2,000 of whom were in the north county area, utilities spokeswoman Erica Erland said. As crews responded to the incidents, the number of customers without power dwindled throughout the day, Erland said. The utility hoped to have power restored to all of its customers by Wednesday night.
Erland described one overnight outage as dramatic. Two streams converged and washed away a private road in La Center, leaving six customers without road access, water or power, she said. Crews worked throughout the night and into the morning to provide temporary service by laying a pole and water pipe over the rushing water to restore water service to the customers. They also worked to reroute power service through the woods, Erland said.
“We found a way to bring temporary electric service through the woods to get them back on because they’re looking at many days of repairs,” Erland said.
The residents no longer could drive on the private road, though they could get to places by foot, Erland said.
As far as the storm goes, Erland said that it could have been worse around the county.
“Given the amount of rainfall, Clark County fared very well and our crews were able to keep up very impressively overnight,” she said.
The water levels led to road closures throughout the day, Clark County Public Works spokesman Jeff Mize said.
The more heavily used roads that were closed included Northeast Salmon Creek Avenue near Washington State University Vancouver and Northeast Daybreak Road north of Brush Prairie. Both were closed in the morning but reopened by early afternoon, Mize said.
Parts of Northeast JA Moore Road remained closed Wednesday, and the county tried to crack down on people attempting to drive on the closed portion of the roadway by adding barricades and dispatching sheriff’s deputies to write tickets.
“More than half of flood-related deaths in the United States occur when someone drives a vehicle into hazardous water,” the county said in a press release. “As little as 12 inches of water can carry away a small vehicle.”
The National Weather Service says that the rainy weather isn’t over, with rain systems coming into the area today, Friday and Saturday.
“People might see some heavy rain, but it looks like we’re talking lighter than (Tuesday) night,” said Amanda Bowen, meteorologist with the National Weather Service. “It’s just looking like we’re in a definite wet period.”
