Documentation of Flooding 2007

Here are some of the pictures of the flooding that took place here on Monday. The whole thing was so surreal since it came on gradually. As we said in our last post, we had some snow on Saturday, then dumps of it on Sunday. It was great. The kids loved playing in it, it was beautiful from inside, and best of all, it didn't interfere with school since it was on the weekend! Then came the consequences... The snow turned to heavier, sleet-like snow/rain mix by Sunday evening. We thought that was fine because it meant no road problems on Monday for school and commuting. Could we have been more wrong?

By Monday morning, since it had been raining all night, the ground was really wet. Not only did we have the current rain, but it combined with all of the melting snow to produce twice the run off. By 10:45 on Monday morning, our school was being emergency evacuated. At that point, many roads were already closed due to what was then referred to as the innocuous 'water over roadway.' By Monday afternoon, when the rain would just not stop, many people had been stranded or stuck for hours. Robb was on the south side of a freeway closure to our south. He wasn't sure if he might have to turn around, drive all the way across the bridge, through Tacoma, and back north to the ferries just to get home by Monday night. Fortunately, he was driving in the right direction...The other side of the freeway was under about 4 feet of water, but they were letting cars through slowly on Robb's side.

My dad had to run out to try to find a sump pump to pump out the 17" of water from their crawl space under their house. By about 7 hours later, there were still about 5" of water left, even with the pump. We were going to use their pump for the 15" of water sitting under our house until the rain finally subsided, and our curtain drains were finally able to handle what was left of the load of water drainage.

Tuesday our entire school district was closed due to widespread road closures and power outages. Fortunately for us, the high winds stayed mostly to the coast, so the projected power outages were nowhere near as severe as we had feared, and we remained with power the whole time, despite a few flickers. Wednesday, the rest of the district was back open with modified trainsportation for all buses. All of the district that is, except Brownsville Elementary. The website gave 3 reasons: road closures, no phone or computer service, and no fire alarm service. The latter two issues were resolved before lunchtime on Wednesday, but the former remains a problem. As I write this, the older boys are on their way home from school on the bus. Though I know they are safe on the bus, I have no idea how long it will take them to get home. On a normal Thursday, they are usually walking through the door exactly at this time...At this point, there is only ONE route in and out of the school, the other 3 ALL have sinkholes. See pictures below...

The picture above on the left is on our way to school. The one above on the right is the alternate way to school (the one I take if I go to Starbuck's on the way...). The one below on the left is in Silverdale right near our bank. The one on the right is the Fred Meyer parking lot.