Tualco Valley Airlift Puts Periled Residents Above It All

MONROE - Jan Bickner and Mary Peterson of Monroe were off on a Christmas shopping spree yesterday morning when they learned the Skykomish River was on a rampage south of town.

In an hour or so they gathered up a friend, Pat Garrity, and had chicken noodle soup bubbling in the social hall of St. Mary of the Valley Catholic Church and were pouring cocoa and coffee for Tualco Valley residents airlifted from flooded homes and farms by Navy and Snohomish County search-and-rescue helicopters.

Vern Stubblefield, a cook who works from a wheelchair, rolled into the church kitchen and began putting together a huge pot of chili.

Rick Terletter, a Monroe Fire Department volunteer, finished up work as a bakery delivery-truck driver at 5 a.m. yesterday. Instead of going home, he pulled on his fire garb and went to the Monroe Airport to help coordinate emergency flights to evacuate stranded families.

As the Skykomish, fed by nonstop rain and melting snow, overflowed its banks to invade homes and barns, volunteers and professionals quickly went to work at jobs they know well. Flooding is common where the Skykomish and the Snoqualmie flow together to become the Snohomish, but the flood they were battling here yesterday was the worst in many years.

Harvey Airfield and other low areas across the river from Snohomish were flooded when a dike broke on the Lowell Road late yesterday afternoon. Snohomish police said airplanes were flown safely from the airport and that evacuations had begun from nearby farms and homes.

To help Monroe-area residents stranded by high water, Navy Lts. Mark Jones and Ken Wasson flew a huge helicopter from the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station across the gloomy valley, their aircraft lashed by driving rain.

As it hovered above the floodwaters, Corpsman Joe Bayles rode a cable out of the belly of the chopper to rescue Allan Brown, a Tualco Valley resident crippled by a stroke, and his wife Alice. The Skykomish had begun to flow through their living room as the Navy arrived.

``It happened so fast,'' Mrs. Brown said. ``You're down in the water and then you're up.''

On another trip, Bayles and the copter's crew chief, Ron Brabant, and the crew swimmer, Jim Stevenson, hoisted a pregnant woman aboard and flew her to safety.

The Snohomish County search-and-rescue helicopter, flying similar evacuation missions, made a special effort to rescue a woman suffering a heart attack on a farm south of the Skykomish.

For Maggie LaCasse and Jonelle Silva, 17-year-old neighbors and friends in the Tualco Valley, the copter flight was scary. But minutes after landing at the Monroe Airport, they were laughing and giggling in the safe warmth of a school bus.

Evacuated with them were Maggie's parents, John and Ramona, and the family dog, Freddie.

Like many Tualco Valley residents, the LaCasse family went to bed Friday night thinking the worst of the rain and flooding was over. When they awoke yesterday, their house was surrounded by the river and water was lapping at their deck.

With roads impassable, LaCasse called for help. Like Maggie and Jonelle Ramona LaCasse won't forget the Navy's arrival.

``I can go a long time without doing that again,'' she said of being winched from the ground into the helicopter. ``It's like a horse collar,'' she said of the hoisting sling. ``They put that around you and that's it.

``I couldn't breath until Maggie was in. She's so little I could see her slipping through.''

Hill Woodard and his wife, Esther, stood in waist-deep water as they awaited a Navy rescue from their Tualco Valley home. For her, the rescue was old hat.

In the valley's last big flood, in 1975, Esther was hoisted to safety by a helicopter crew. Wearing a bright-red coat, she was photographed by TV crews and made the national news.

But they didn't expect 1975 conditions again.

``We couldn't imagine it would do this,'' she said. ``We put our car on high ground and I think it's flooded, too. It's a mess.''

At the Monroe Airport, the Navy flight crew refueled on hamburgers and french fries while waiting for a tank truck to fill their helicopter's empty tanks. Wasson said the crew had been flying a house-to-house search, ``looking for people on rooftops or waving for help.''

At some farms, women and children were evacuated while men stayed behind to care for livestock.

``I'm not sure that's the smart thing to do,'' Wasson said. ``But the cattle have to be fed.''

Kirk Stickels, chief of the Monroe Fire Department, said some farmers had trucked their cattle to higher ground and that residents were coping, even though they had been surprised by the sudden rise in the river yesterday morning.

``Folks here have been through this before and they all have contingency plans,'' Stickels said.

Terletter, one of Stickel's volunteers at the airport, said motorists driving by stopped and offered their homes to families evacuated from flooded farms.

``It's nice to know people care,'' Terletter said.