In a big reveal by King County officials, we now know more than 400 people are reporting major damages to homes and businesses from December’s flooding.
This coming one month since multiple atmospheric river systems tore through Western Washington.
Auburn, Carnation, Kent, Duvall, and Pacific…all reeling from the impacts.
One woman in Carnation telling us “I have never seen the water as high up as it was at the park today, the whole parking lot of the campground is flooded out”.
Now one month later, King County Emergency Management (KCEM) Director Brendan McCluskey saying their crews are now shifting from chaos to calm.
“We are focusing more on survivors trying to get them back to normal,” McCluskey said.
KCEM revealed that 396 people reported damage to their homes and 62 people to their businesses.
He said that it is around the number they were expecting to see and will likely have more people file reports later as well.
“The first stage is collecting information,” McCluskey said. “How much has been damaged, what’s the damage, if it’s minor, major, catastrophic and getting people access to resources.”
He tells us there are still funds available for those who need help.
“I think that’s where the state and county program will fund things like repairs, extended stays in hotels, and paying for some debris removal,” McCluskey said.
You can find that information here: https://wa.gov/
He tells us almost all roads and bridges are back to operating as normal, but the work isn’t over.
“We are doing a complete assessment of damages done to the levees and other infrastructure that will contribute to the application the state is making for federal relief efforts.”
He tells us the Baring Bridge over the Skykomish River is operating on a weight restriction because a tree damaged the infrastructure. That bridge is the only access to about 170 homes. Right now smaller cars can go over it, but nothing bigger. McCluskey said the plan is to put in a temporary bridge soon.
He tells us KCEM is turning the compiled damage information over to state officials so they can include the data in their request for federal funding.
Governor Bob Ferguson said they plan on submitting a large funding request to the federal government in the coming months once they know the full extent and cost of the damage across the impacted dozen or so counties.