KENT, Wash. — Even Jere Pollock’s pet duck is no fan of the floods that keep hitting her neighborhood when Mill Creek rises just behind her home in Kent.
“It’s just getting really tiring,” Pollock said on Friday.
Beginning on Thursday, Kent got more than two inches of rain in 24 hours.
Deep water covered James Street.
“I remember when James, it was worse than what it is now,” Pollock said.
In the past, floodwaters on James Street would linger for days.
The latest flood receded in hours because of a pump station that came online in 2017.
“Slowly but surely, we’ve been working on flooding in the valley for decades,” said Chad Bieren, Kent’s public works director.
The pumps make a big difference, but Mill Creek still doesn’t have enough capacity to handle all the rain from big storms.
“In the past, we would have dredged the creek out, but we have to figure out a different way to go about it now,” Bieren said.
Since the creek was dredged in the 1980s, several feet of sediment have built up.
Dredging might not be allowed now because of the impact on salmon, so the city is working on getting a permit for some kind of solution, possibly diverting the creek.
“We’ve been at it for several years, and we think we’ll have to be at it for several more just for permitting to be able to get to work on it,” Bieren said.
In the meantime, neighbors face floods that come every year.
“It depends on how bad it is, then that pump house can’t keep up,” Jere Pollock said.