This Whatcom flood impact lurks in some homes and can make residents sick

BELLINGHAM — Tony Neal might not always be able to see the mold growing in Whatcom homes impacted by flooding, but he can usually smell it.

“Mold is like you’re breathing heavy, thick air that smells like compost. You have a sense that there is mist all around you,” said the lead pastor of Everson’s Calvary Creekside church, which has helped with recovery efforts following historic flooding in the final months of 2021. “Usually there’s a rot smell to it.”

As warmer spring weather creates prime mold-growing conditions, the fungus is beginning to fester in homes that weren’t cleaned and dried out immediately after the floods. Most residents took swift action to address water in their homes, and a minority of flood-impacted homes are experiencing dangerous mold growth now — between 5% to 10%, estimates Lacey De Lange, lead disaster case manager at Whatcom Long Term Recovery Group. But the consequences for the people living in these homes are dire.

A Sumas family that De Lange is working with has experienced persistent infections since deciding to stay in their flood-damaged home, where the odor of mold is palpable.

“It’s unsafe and unsanitary,” De Lange said, who also called the situation “heartbreaking.”

Research on the health effects of mold are ongoing, but common symptoms of exposure include wheezing, asthma attacks, nasal and sinus congestion, a hacking cough, burning eyes, skin rashes, aches and pains, headaches, memory loss and mood changes, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It’s sometimes difficult to see mold, particularly if it’s growing between the walls or under the floorboards, and people don’t always know they are exposed.

“When people are living in that, they aren’t usually associating it with mold growth,” Neal said.

Mold can begin growing on damp surfaces as soon as one or two days after a flood, according to FEMA. Plus, the water that inundated northern Whatcom communities wasn’t just any old water, Neal said. Floodwaters flowed over agricultural fields, picking up manure and bacteria, before entering homes.

“It’s pretty dangerous water,” Neal said. “It’s not just water you get a towel and wipe off and call it good.”

Mold remediation proves challenging

For some residents, mold growth is preventing them from safely returning home. De Lange tells the story of a couple in their 80s still living in the hotel system months after the flood because their home in Sumas smells so bad.

Although the couple knows they need to hire professionals for an extensive clean-up, it hasn’t proven simple, De Lange said — the building is more than a century old, and its crawl space is smaller than those in newer homes, making it difficult for a professional crew to get underneath. The crawl space of a building is a narrow, unfinished space that sits between the ground and the first floor.

If a flood-impacted resident can see mold on surfaces in their home, there’s likely more growing inside the walls and underneath the floor, said Everson Mayor John Perry, who has dealt with mold for years as a contractor.

“To fully address it, the sheetrock has to be removed and wet insulation has to come out,” Perry said.

However, many local businesses that specialize in mold remediation, or eliminating mold growth, have long waitlists, due to the large number of homes that need work in the wake of the floods, De Lange said. She has been trying to help families find travel trailers to inhabit in their driveways as they wait, but these vehicles are expensive and in high demand after the pandemic created a boom in RV sales.

Plus, construction work doesn’t come cheap. Neal said that homeowners typically have to rip out everything lower than 18 inches above the height floodwaters reached.

“When you’re done, your home looks like it’s been stripped of the bottom half,” he said.

Some residents have been quoted as much as $30,000 for mold remediation work, De Lange said. That’s a price tag many can’t afford, especially if they are hoping to participate in a buyout program, through which the government purchases a risky property, allowing residents to move to a less flood-prone area.

“They don’t want to put money into the home if they are just going to sell out,” De Lange said.

While much of the flood clean-up work has been led by volunteers, intensive mold remediation is a different story, De Lange said.

“You could consider it a biohazard,” she said. “As an organization, we can’t put volunteers under people’s homes now. It has to come from companies that specialize in this kind of clean out.”

Residents should be careful if they attempt to clean any mold themselves, said Sam Roth, owner of Bellingham-based business ServiceMaster Cleaning by Roth.

“As soon as you start brushing or cleaning mold, the mold spores, by design, fall off the mold,” he said. “That’s how it reproduces itself. Those can cause negative health effects.”

You need respiratory protection if you are going to try to address mold on your own, Roth said. He recommends a P100 respirator mask, which filters at least 99.7 percent of airborne particles.

While someone who is “handy” could probably figure out how to do their own mold remediation, Roth said a professional team has years of experience and access to expensive equipment, such as a HEPA vacuum that can be used to clean up tiny mold spores.

Continuing to support flooded communities

It’s not always easy to provide necessary support to families experiencing mold issues in their homes, De Lange said.

The floods were traumatic for many people, she said, and some people left the area for months following the disaster.

“It’s hard because we also need the family to advocate for their needs,” she said. “Everyone responds to trauma so differently.”

Neal, the pastor at Calvary Creekside, tells similar stories.

“A few families were so overwhelmed and depressed that they moved into the upstairs and left everything downstairs,” Neal said.

“Some of the families you are dealing with, they hunker down and you don’t see them at recovery centers, you don’t see them at the FEMA center,” he continued. “You have to find them by knocking on their door, or the kids are sick, or the school counselors find the families or (De Lange) runs into them.”

Every city impacted by flooding should continue to do door-to-door outreach, Neal said.

The Whatcom Long Term Recovery Group is currently working on solidifying partnerships with national organizations that specialize in crawl space clean-up, De Lange said. She could not give specific names because the partnerships are still being finalized.

She urged people to continue supporting flood recovery efforts.

“We are always looking for three things: Money, manpower and materials,” De Lange said.

Neal agreed that flood-impacted communities need continued support and for contractors to do mold remediation and other construction work on a voluntary basis.

“There’s so much to do still, a long, long way to go,” Neal said. “We need the community of Whatcom County to continue to be financially generous and to bring building expertise to Everson and Nooksack and Sumas.”

What about when the next flood inevitably comes?

“At this point, raising houses is probably the best option,” Roth at ServiceMaster Cleaning by Roth said. “Once you have water in the house, you will have to do all the same steps as last time.”