Storm Devastation

As I described in my previous post we were fortunate to come away unscathed by the devastating series of storms that hit southwest Washington on Monday. Tens of thousands of people, especially in Kitsap, Lewis, Grays Harbor and Mason counties were not so lucky. With the storms came widespread flooding, power outages and 6 deaths.

The Centralia area in Lewis County was one of the hardest areas. Floods engulfed one-third of the town of Centralia and completely shut down an 11 mile stretch of I-5 for more than 3 days. I understand the water was 10 feet deep along 3 miles of the freeway. The Seattle PI quoted a volunteer who was helping to get supplies to people who need them as saying "I've lived here 26 years, and I've never run a jet boat down I-5 before. It's pretty unbelievable."

My sister Jozi, who lives in Centralia was fortunate to have her home spared. My cousin Rhonda was not so lucky. It took several days before any of the family members heard from Rhonda. When I started writing this post a few days ago I was going to call it "Where's Rhonda?" because she seemed to be missing. Fortunately she is found and she and her husband are safe, staying with friends. But they sustained major damage to their home which they recently finished renovating.

Word has it that they didn't have much time to leave. Someone pounded on their door in the middle of the night to let them know they needed to evacuate immediately. By the time they got dressed the water was flowing into their house. The waters eventually reached their windows so you can imagine how much damage was sustained. Since the waters receded they have been taking things that can be salvaged to Rhonda's mother's home in Elma to dry out. I hope they can make their home habitable once again, but I know it will take much hard work and lots of money for the repairs. I can only imagine they are heartbroken over this.

Jozi lives near the Skookumchuck River which did not rise as high as the Chehalis which is near Rhonda's home. Still, it's nerve-wracking waiting to find out if your home will be safe. Jozi lost a day and a half of work because of the freeway shutdown and not wanting to get stuck in Olympia if her route became completely impassable. She described a couple days of constant helicopter noise. You see, helicopters came from near and far (even from California) to help in the rescue effort. Over 300 people were rescued by helicopter from their homes.

Flood waters also caused road closures on the Kitsap Peninsula. Bremerton got a record 12+ inches of rain.

These storms were not only full of rain but high winds as well. Hurricane force winds hit on the coast causing over 50,000 customers to lose power - about 30,000 of them in Grays Harbor County. My cousin Karen lives in that area and she had to evacuate her apartment. Not because of flooding, but because the wind took the roof off the apartment building! The coastal area was completely isolated from road access because of flooding and had to endure days without power. Two days ago there were still 16,000 without power. Since the storm the weather has turned cold. What a miserable situation.

Lewis and Grays Harbor Counties were recently declared federal disaster areas. I'm planning to donate some money for the relief efforts. If you find yourself in a position to do the same and would like to help, King5 has a page here with a great list of ways you can help.