PACIFIC, Wash. — Dozens of people whose homes flooded when a levee broke on the White River in Pacific are suing the King County Flood Control District for the damage their homes incurred in December 2025.
In a notice to sue filed Monday, 83 people signed on claiming KCFCD had been “creating conditions that resulted in catastrophic flooding when the levees breached.”
Residents who live on the block say the ground in yards is still soft, repairs are still going, and worry their homes may be damaged forever.
Jacqueline Boles and her husband Lawerence are the lead plaintiffs on the case. They say inspections found the crawlspace had been flooded with water, saturating their heating ducts. It also found that their foundation is falling.
“Now my home, I’ve been told, is cracking. You’ll be sitting in a room and hear pop, pop, pop.” Boles said.
The water that sat in her home was stagnant for days, as evacuation prevented them from returning. When she finally came home, the damage and smell were overwhelming.
“Thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars that we’ve had to spend that we don’t have,” Boles said.
About ten houses down on White River Drive, Lilly Castro’s ceilings are also cracking; she fears that the foundation is being compromised.
Drywall in her garage and countless other things were soaked, and her water damage totaled her electric car and her crawlspace was also flooded. Across the street—a row of HESCO barriers, similar to the ones up the White River that failed in the early morning hours of December 16th.
“I was pregnant with my youngest child when the levee was put in place,” Castro said.
She lived in a different part of the Pacific at the time, but now, the youngest is about ready to graduate high school. The barriers are why the legal documents claim KCFCD is responsible for the damage the residents incurred—they were installed in 2008 and as recently as 2004, the district has noted “‘aging and in need of replacement’” according to the suit.
“[KCFCD] admitted that the levee systems for these rivers were inadequate and had serious safety issues.” The suit says.
Boles, Castro, and four other neighbors KIRO 7 spoke with today all say they did not have flood insurance because their block is not in a 100 or even 500-year flood plain.
“We asked four, five, six times, are we supposed to have flood insurance? We asked our realtor, we asked the previous owner, who answered no,” Boles said.
According to the suit, the residents want KCFCD to pay for the damage their homes received. KCFCD did not reply to KIRO 7’s request for comment on this story but has 30 days to respond to the notice of suit.
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