RECORD RAINS HIT SEATTLE on Oct 20

[tropicana]

Record rain hits Rain City

By Seattle Times staff


Record rain fell on the Seattle area in unrelenting, if not quite biblical sheets Monday, bringing flood warnings for 10 Washington rivers, closing roads, unleashing a few mudslides — even prompting the distribution of sandbags for Seattle homeowners trying to keep water from seeping into their garages and basements.

All day, all night, rain fell, with the National Weather Service reporting an all-time record for a single day. The old record of 3.41 inches, set Nov. 20, 1959, was surpassed — almost laughably early — shortly after 5 p.m. at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. By 1 a.m. Tuesday, 5.02 inches had fallen, which set the record. The heavy downpour stopped and the drizzle began by 8:30 a.m., adding 0.16 more inches of rain.

The old record for Oct. 20, perhaps barely worth mentioning: 1.27 inches in 1956.

Total rainfall


Totals for the 24-hour period ending at 5 p.m. Monday.
Location Inches
Arlington 0.59
Bellingham 1.16
Bremerton 6.52
Everett 1.50
Friday Harbor 1.48
Gig Harbor 3.33
Hoquiam 4.53
NOAA Sandpoint 2.73
Olympia 2.94
Port Angeles 1.89
Sea-Tac Airport 3.28
Shelton 5.93
Whidbey Island 0.72



No injuries were reported in the state. At 8 a.m. Tuesday morning, about 2,500 Seattle City Light customers were without power, all of them on the north and east sides of Queen Anne.

Usually hard-to-impress meteorologists were giving this chapter in Seattle's precipitation history some respect.

"It started after midnight, and it kept going and going and going," said National Weather Service meteorologist Allen Kam.

The "conveyor-belt type situation," as Kam put it, involved a strong jet stream lodged over the area and warm, moist air streaming up from the south. The so-called Pineapple Express, which brought a high temperature of 65 to Sea-Tac Monday, should start budging Tuesday.

The forecast is for more rain Tuesday, though it may stop at times. Highs will be in the 60s until a cold front arrives, probably Wednesday, with drier conditions expected by the weekend, Kam said.

The Skagit River in northwest Washington appeared to pose the greatest threat. It crested at about 42.2 feet — about 14 feet above flood stage — at 6:45 a.m. this morning near Concrete. Residents of low-lying areas near Concrete and Marblemount were being evacuated and shelters were opened. In Hamilton, 110 people had shown up at the shelter at the First Baptist Church over night.



Don McKeehen, spokesman for Skagit County Emergency Operations, said the National Guard had been called in to assist with evacuations. City residents and volunteers are busy Tuesday morning sandbagging.

Flood warnings also were issued for the Nooksack in Whatcom County, the Stillaguamish and Skykomish in Snohomish County, the Tolt and Snoqualmie in east King County, the Satsop in Grays Harbor County, the Elwha and Dungeness on the Olympic Peninsula and the Skokomish in Mason County, near Olympia.

As the rapture of a gorgeous, especially dry summer became nearly impossible to recall Monday, reports of the deluge came pouring in: more than 6 inches by late afternoon in Shelton and over 8 inches in Lilliwaup, both in Mason County; more than 3 inches in Gig Harbor in just seven hours.

A rain gauge in Hoodsport overflowed, unable to measure beyond the 7 inches that washed in.

In Olympia, by 6 p.m., a record for the date had been smashed with 3.13 inches.

"People are calling saying the water's coming through light fixtures, leaking skylights. It's coming in four different spots in the ceiling," said Gloria Aguilar, secretary and bookkeeper at the Roof Doctor in Shelton.

Aguilar had been taking calls for emergency repairs around town steadily since 8 a.m. Her house, she declared, was fine. She recently got a new roof, "half-off" she pointed out, courtesy of her employer.


Throughout the day, transportation and utility crews around Western Washington struggled to keep up, putting up barricades, clearing storm drains, removing the muck where plugged culverts overflowed.

Highway 2 over Stevens Pass was closed Monday night after a landslide buried the roadway. Debris struck one vehicle, but no one was hurt, according to the State Patrol. One lane was reopened Tuesday morning.

A mudslide closed two westbound lanes of Interstate 90, six miles east of North Bend.

In Clallam County, both lanes of Highway 112 near the entrance to the Makah Reservation remained closed after a sinkhole 150 feet wide and 40 feet deep washed out both lanes of the highway over the weekend.

In Seattle, where about 30 people from Seattle Public Utilities were out trying to clear roads and drains, spokeswoman Susan Stoltzfus said workers were behind the curve.

"It's incredible — the water just doesn't have the chance to be absorbed," she said. "How do you keep up?"

Among the hardest-hit areas in Seattle were the neighborhoods near Thornton Creek, which carries rainwater and runoff from Northgate to Lake Washington. The creek overflowed in the morning, spilling onto 35th Avenue Northeast in the Meadowbrook neighborhood near Nathan Hale High School.

Not everyone found the mess inconvenient.

As Peter Keller, a 15-year-old Nathan Hale freshman, sat in class and watched the rain fall outside, he couldn't stop thinking about Thornton Creek. As soon as the bell rang, he raced to the torrent of chocolate-milk-colored water. Keller tied a rope around his waist, handed the other end to a friend, and plunged into the middle of the creek, school clothes and all.

"This is the most fun you can have for free," said a drenched and grime-covered Keller.




Seattle Times staff reporters Diane Brooks, Leslie Fulbright, Emily Heffter, Ian Ith, Beth Kaiman, Lynn Thompson, Jon Savelle, Christopher Schwarzen, Jennifer Sullivan and Rachel Tuinstra, and The Associated Press, contributed to this report.

[PTrackerLA]

Those are some pretty heavy rainfall amounts, I hope they get a chance to dry out soon.