Flooding overwhelms Washington
Mudslides create havoc near Canadian border
BELLINGHAM, Wash. — More people were urged to leave their homes Tuesday and officials in a small Washington city near the Canada border are calling the damage devastating after a storm that dumped rain for days caused flooding and mudslides.
Sumas city officials said Tuesday on Facebook that hundreds of people had been evacuated and they estimated that 75 percent of homes had water damage in a soaking that reminded people of western Washington’s record, severe flooding in November 1990 when two people died and there were more than 2,000 evacuations.
“These families and businesses need our prayers and support as we start the process of cleanup and rebuilding over the next few days,” the post said.
Additionally, six railroad cars that had been sitting on tracks in a BNSF rail yard in Sumas derailed in the flooding Tuesday, according to Lena Kent, BNSF general director of public affairs. Trains in that location and others won’t be running until water recedes and debris is removed and tracks are inspected, she said.
Just over the border, residents in about 1,100 rural homes in Abbotsford, British Columbia were told to evacuate Tuesday as waterways started to rise quickly. Police said they understood many of the affected properties are dairy farms or house other livestock, but said the situation was changing rapidly and residents must leave.
In the northern Washington city of Ferndale, officials on Tuesday urged people in homes and businesses to evacuate in an area near the rising Nooksack River, saying it had potential to breach the levee.
Road crews on Tuesday managed to partially reopen the West Coast’s main north-south Interstate 5 near Bellingham, a city south of Ferndale, following its complete closure overnight. But the highway’s northbound lanes were still closed in the area.
The rains were caused by an atmospheric river — a huge plume of moisture extending over the Pacific and into Washington and Oregon.
At the height of the storm, more than 158,000 electrical customers in western Washington on Monday had no power and schools in and around the city of Bellingham were closed on Tuesday for the second day in a row. Nearly 50,000 Washington state electrical customers remained without power on Tuesday, officials said.
Northeast of Bellingham in the Everson area, authorities said one person was still missing Tuesday after being seen in floodwaters clinging to a tree.
And a motorist in Bellingham was seriously injured Monday on Interstate 5 when a tree fell on a vehicle. Monday winds reached speeds of 60 mph, including one gust of 58 mph at Seattle-tacoma International Airport.
Conditions were drier Tuesday but the National Weather Service issued flood warnings for several rivers around western Washington.