Flooding remains threat in Pacific north-west as Washington declares emergency | US weather
Dangerous floodwaters from the Pacific Northwest’s historically swollen rivers continued to pose a huge threat Friday as 100,000 people in the region were under evacuation warnings and more deluges are expected Sunday.
Torrential rains caused flooding Thursday across much of the region, from northern Oregon through Washington state to British Columbia, closing dozens of roads and already prompting the evacuation of tens of thousands of people.
The intense rains began earlier in the week, swept across the region by a storm system that meteorologists call an atmospheric river, a vast air current of dense moisture channeled inland from the Pacific Ocean.
Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson declared a statewide state of emergency Wednesday in response to severe weather that caused mudslides, washed out roads and submerged vehicles.
Western Washington was hardest hit by the storm, with flood warnings deployed in the Cascade Mountains, Olympic Mountains and Puget Sound, as well as a northern part of Oregon, a region home to some 5.8 million people, according to the U.S. National Weather Service.
The same storm system brought heavy downpours and flooding to western Montana and parts of northern Idaho.
As of Friday, about 100,000 residents of Western Washington were under Level 3 evacuation orders urging them to immediately move to higher ground, the bulk of them in rural Skagit County, north of Seattle, said Karina Shagren, a spokeswoman for the state’s emergency management division.
About 3,800 evacuees would need temporary shelter, said Julie de Losada, Skagit County emergency chief.
First responders have rescued several people, including by helicopter in King and Whatcom counties in recent days.
The worst flooding was reported along the Skagit, Snohomish and Puyallup rivers. More than 30 highways and dozens of smaller roads were closed due to flooding in the region, state officials said.
Several long stretches of the BNSF Railway, a major freight line serving the Pacific Northwest, were washed out or closed due to flooding, the company said, citing rainfall of 10 to 17 inches or more in many areas.
Some rivers reached several meters above record levels and as of Friday morning they had not receded. The forecast calls for lighter rain Friday and a generally dry Saturday, but meteorologists predict heavier rain Sunday for the region.
In British Columbia, five of six Canadian highways leading to the Pacific port city of Vancouver were closed due to flooding, falling rocks and the risk of avalanches, local authorities announced Thursday.
“This situation is evolving and very dynamic,” said the British Columbia Ministry of Transportation.
Access to Vancouver relies largely on a limited road and rail network that crosses the Rocky Mountains.
Although such storms are not uncommon on the U.S. Pacific coast, meteorologists say they are likely to become more frequent and more extreme over the next century if global warming caused by the man-made climate crisis continues at its current rate.
