Morning flood update: After a nervous night, dikes still holding
Thursday, January 8, 2009 10:57 AM PST
By Tony Lystra
tlystra@tdn.com
Printable version
E-mail this articleThe levees held.
Cowlitz County officials had worried Wednesday that, as the Cowlitz and Coweeman rivers swelled, the dikes that protected thousands of residents would give way. More than 2,000 people were evacuated in South Kelso. Dozens more left their homes in Castle Rock.
And yet, as of 7:30 Thursday, the rivers were kept at bay.
The rivers had yet to crest and officials were “still keeping an eye on things,” said Ryan Lopossa, the county’s deputy public works director.
“But, yeah,” he said, “We’re happy that things are holding.”
Earlier Wednesday evening, the Coweeman River was nearly even with the top of the levee at the Brooks Hollow RV Park in Kelso. The dike had “water boiling out of it,” Cowlitz 2 firefigher Travis McWain said.
A team of high school students training to be firefighters piled sandbags on the Coweeman dike in roughly a dozen places, each marking where the levee might fail. The students were sleeping back at the Cowlitz 2 Fire & Rescue station in Kelso -- just in case their services would be needed again.
At midnight, the dike was disturbingly soggy in places. In one spot, muddy water seeped through and pooled behind a pile of sandbags.
Firefighters, police and county road crews worked throughout the night to keep up with high water, failed hillsides and fallen trees.
There were no reports of injuries related to the weather.
A large backyard shed tumbled down a hillside at 102 Country Place in the Columbia Heights area and became twisted in a grove of trees just before 4 a.m. It looked as though it might continue falling into a neighbor’s yard, but a Sheriff’s deputy said there was no immediate danger.
As the Cowlitz River continued to rise after midnight, authorities evacuated about 40 homes on Green Acres Drive and less than ten houses on Mosier Road in Castle Rock.
High water closed West Side Highway closed north of Four Corners. On the southern end of the county, a large mudslide closed Ham Road near Lake Merwin.
Kalama River Road closed after water washed out both lanes. Fallen trees blocked one side of Holcomb Road in Northeast Kelso, and the road was starting to give way.
“People are going to have to be careful and patient,” said Greg Kelly, a Cowlitz 2 operations chief who had monitored the situation throughout the night. “The road crews are doing everything they can.”
Past Month's Most Commented Stories