Governor to seek aid for flood harm
Washington cleans up after days of heavy rain
BELLINGHAM, Wash. — With floodwaters receding in parts of Washington state, damage assessments are starting, and Gov. Jay Inslee is promising he will aggressively seek federal money.
In a visit to Whatcom County on Wednesday, the governor said about 500 homes had damage from the storms.
Inslee said he spoke with the mayors of Everson and Sumas and was astonished at the devastation he saw, The Bellingham Herald reported.
“I’m told they did top all-time flood levels in some places,” he said.
Inslee said damage figures will be compiled in a bid for federal aid, and he noted that “some of our teachers and educators (are) out going door to door to seek damage assessments.”
Laura Anker, Cherry Street Market store manager in Sumas, said Thursday that they were in full cleanup mode.
“It’s not great, but we’re hanging in there,” she said.
The Red Cross said Thursday it is operating three shelters in western Washington to support residents displaced by flooding.
Transportation officials on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula — where the Coast Guard earlier in the week rescued 10 people stranded by floodwaters — were assessing conditions and clearing debris from roads.
Officials said that in the far northwest corner of the peninsula, people on the Makah Reservation have been prevented from leaving or entering because of landslides on nearby highways, The Seattle Times reported.
In British Columbia, Canada, the federal government was sending in the military to help with floods and mudslides that destroyed parts of several major highways. Vancouver was cut off by road from the interior of the province.
The mayor of Abbotsford said he would talk with Inslee to discuss severe flooding on the Canadian side of the border at least partially caused by swollen rivers in the United States.
The soaking was fueled by an atmospheric river that dumped torrents rain on the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia from Saturday through Monday. The flooding reminded people of western Washington’s record, severe flooding in November 1990 when two people died and there were more than 2,000 evacuations.
More rain fell in Bellingham from Saturday through Monday — about 5.57 inches — than normally falls there during all of November, according to National Weather Service data. The normal monthly rain total is 5.2 inches for November, the weather agency said.
Some of the floodwaters came after warmer rains quickly melted 4 feet of snow that previously fell in the Mount Baker wilderness. Inslee said Whatcom County should prepare for repeated floods and address the causes of climate change.
“We have to realize that we’re going to face decades of increased floods in our state of Washington,” he said.