Flooded Valley
Mar. 6th, 2014 08:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fenchurchAs I've mentioned, we've been getting a LOT of rain lately... and it's been fascinating watching the valley below us fill up with water, to the point where it's actually starting to look like a giant lake in spots! The Snoqualmie River is at flood stage and some of its tributaries are swelling enough to start overflowing the roads. Earlier today, one of the major routes into Duvall was closed when what I'm pretty sure is Adair Creek finally crested the roadway. While we don't have to cross the valley to get home, we do have to take the road northbound that leads to the other major route into Duvall, so we get to deal with at least some of the backup, too. By the time I headed home, Woodinville-Duvall Road into Duvall was backed up all the way across the valley and up the hill, meaning no one was really moving on the northbound road either... and it only got worse. It took Rackham an hour and a half to drive a route that normally takes him about 35 minutes.
The car you see behind the Road Closed sign was actually stalled there with its hood up... my guess is they drove through the water anyway and flooded the engine. I actually saw it getting hooked up to a tow truck on the traffic cam about an hour later, so I'm guessing they never did get it started again. And the vehicle you can see back by the bridge was actually a county truck, probably trying to discourage people from ignoring the signs.
Also, you can probably see that there's actually a *permanent* sign that says "Water Over Roadway" (with a flap they can use to cover it when they don't need it). This spot is rather notorious for flooding, but it's usually not bad enough to actually stop the flow of traffic.
One of the reasons we never really looked at houses on the other side of the valley was because we knew this sort of thing was an issue. I remember about ten years or so ago, we had a HUGE storm roll through in November, dumping a ton of rain in the lowlands and a ton of snow in the mountains. It knocked power out to the Seattle area for nearly a week (yes, the whole area) and flooded out roads everywhere... to the point that Duvall was an island with no way to leave (seriously, all roadways in and out were flooded or had mudslides and trees on them). While we have to deal with the occasional tree down over the road and backups from people trying to get into Duvall when there's flooding, one thing I'm not worried about is having to deal with a flooded road to get to our house.
Crossposted from my Livejournal.
The car you see behind the Road Closed sign was actually stalled there with its hood up... my guess is they drove through the water anyway and flooded the engine. I actually saw it getting hooked up to a tow truck on the traffic cam about an hour later, so I'm guessing they never did get it started again. And the vehicle you can see back by the bridge was actually a county truck, probably trying to discourage people from ignoring the signs.
Also, you can probably see that there's actually a *permanent* sign that says "Water Over Roadway" (with a flap they can use to cover it when they don't need it). This spot is rather notorious for flooding, but it's usually not bad enough to actually stop the flow of traffic.
One of the reasons we never really looked at houses on the other side of the valley was because we knew this sort of thing was an issue. I remember about ten years or so ago, we had a HUGE storm roll through in November, dumping a ton of rain in the lowlands and a ton of snow in the mountains. It knocked power out to the Seattle area for nearly a week (yes, the whole area) and flooded out roads everywhere... to the point that Duvall was an island with no way to leave (seriously, all roadways in and out were flooded or had mudslides and trees on them). While we have to deal with the occasional tree down over the road and backups from people trying to get into Duvall when there's flooding, one thing I'm not worried about is having to deal with a flooded road to get to our house.
Crossposted from my Livejournal.
