No Loss for Words

Excuse me for taking the past month off for the holidays. It is not like me to be at a loss for words. In spite of that, there is no doubt that things have been happening.

On the morning of December 13, 2008 we received a fresh blanket of snow that started a month of bad karma. Here in Snohomish County we received the longest and coldest snow storm in most of our memories. There were some of our customers that talked about snow fall in their yards a couple feet deep. Thankfully, in town the snow was only a foot or so deep. For those among us who wanted a White Christmas, their wish was granted. We had fresh snow for Christmas. For those who needed to get around for holiday functions with family and friends, the snow was a pain in the rear.

For the most part, the snow limited our mobility and restricted our customers’ ability to get to our restaurant and that left me cool. You know what happens when Steve’s customers cannot get to The HUB, Steve gets really cranky.

If the snow had been the extent of the bad news, we all could have been okay with it; there were not too many seriously adverse impacts from the snow. The unfortunate thing was that was only the half of it. The bad stuff was yet to come.

Everyone looks forward to the melt after a snow event. We can’t wait for the slush to clear and the roads to get back to normal. After snow plows and shovels moved great quantities of the white stuff around, there were some really big piles of if left. Even today, there are residual piles of snow from the last snowfall around Christmas.

I have been critical of Snohomish County in the past, but when the snow falls, our County public works crews are saviors. My friend Doug F works for the county in the equipment maintenance section and he works his butt off to make sure the snow removal equipment is ready if and when the snow comes. His work paid off this year. There is no doubt that the county equipment did a marvelous job during the snow event this year. My hat is off to all those workers who went out to face the storm to make life better for the rest of us.

Much criticism was leveled against almost every city for their failure to clear snow from city streets. It seems that citizens look for their government to solve every problem that comes up. Having been one of those city officials myself, I can tell you that budgeting for snow removal is a really low priority. When it happens at the end of a budget cycle, there is no spare dough lying around. In addition, most small cities have limited budgets at the start of the year and most don’t have capable snow removal equipment.

As a citizen, I was frustrated with the snow. As a former elected official, I understood that there were limited options. There were a couple times when I saw a city truck with a snow blade and a sanding box that wasn’t blading or sanding. Even if the truck is heading across town, blade the street on the way.

If we are lucky following a snow storm, the temperature stays low at higher elevations preventing the mountain snow from melting as well. This was not one of those years. Sadly, the warm rains that came following the thaw compounded the troubles of a normal melt.

Near record “snow pack” for us low-landers and wave after wave of huge warm rain systems assaulting our beaches set the stage for a real catastrophe. Flooding has always been our nemesis in our low lying areas. This year brought incredible amounts of rainfall in a very short time frame. Some areas were getting sustained rainfall of 1.5 inches per hour for eight to ten hours at a time. Some of the areas on the coast expect “rain forest” type numbers, but most of us are not prepared for them.

I have talked about flooding on a number of occasions. For many of us that have lived in this area for a long time, we can look back at different years and remember certain aspects of a flood event. In 1975 we had a flood that was devastating to a lot of people since the high water caused a catastrophic dike failure at the French Creek pump station. The breach blew out the dike around the flood control facility and so quickly swept across the valley to the east it allowed no meaningful warning to residents. The resulting flood killed thousands of farm animals and destroyed millions of dollars worth of property. In my mind I can still see what seemed like hundreds of dump trucks filled with dead cows in a convoy to the landfill. That was a tragedy!

In 1990 there was another catastrophic dike failure near Stockers farm on the south side of the river. The water level was record setting in height already. The dike had been built many years before and had not been properly maintained over the long term. Critters had burrowed through the dike over the years creating a network of small tubes. All it took was for a few of them to erode together to cause a small path with incredible pressure to quickly wash away the section of dike. The resulting flow of river water into the valley created a new river with devastating force as far west as the Bicycle Tree. Springhetti Road was washed out and SR-9 was nearly washed away as well.

There is no doubt that dike failures cause significant damage. The force of a great volume of water gushing into and through an area is perilous. The greatest fear during a flood event is a dike failure.

What we all hope during a high water event is that our plans and infrastructure improvements do their jobs.

For the flood of 2009, the Snohomish River overtopped the dike in a number of places, but it did not fail. Clearly thought, the Pilchuck River made a statement this year. The only tributary to the Snohomish River poured humongous volumes of muddy destruction down its’ course this year. Some residents had probably forgotten how surprising the Pilchuck could be. A good deal of the water filling the valley to the east came from Pilchuck river flows.

The Western Washington area in general suffered greatly during this years’ event. Urban flooding demonstrated how poorly prepared our cities are for flood. Rural areas being consumed by development aggravate the problem by reducing the natural systems that have historically protected us. Urban development along with poorly devised forest practices has created dangerous conditions for flooding in our drainage systems.

We need to use the information we gather to better plan for the future in our flood prone areas. That information might suggest that we ban development in the flood zones. It might also suggest that we look at better flood control measures.

One suggestion worth considering addresses two problems at the same time. Building a dam on the Snoqualmie River would create storage capacity for King County drinking water in one role and serving as a flood control device in another.

Since the Snohomish River is formed when the Snoqualmie River and the Skykomish River meet southwest of Monroe, this idea could play a big part in protecting investments in our area.

Sometimes we need to step back from devastating events like floods to look at the big picture. What are our priorities for the future? Should we be planning for future floods by banning development in floodway fringe areas and flood plains or should we be looking for ways to control flood waters before they reach the river valleys? Clearly the erosion control measures relating to development and forest practices need to be considered and improved regardless of the more controversial issues associated with a dam. My hope is that we can have a discussion about the larger issues to consider all the aspects of the choices.

Another thing to consider in our area is dredging. Failing to maintain flow capacity in rivers compound the problems when events occur. Dredging does not need to be a negative thing. We need to look at everything.

What do you think?