Flooding No Easier Second Time Around -- Residents Along Skykomish River Hadn't Yet Recovered From First Hit

SULTAN

The water may be receding, but after their second flood in two weeks, residents of the Skykomish Valley know there is more to a flood than water.

Mud has migrated from ravines, fields and river banks to pantries, drawers and kitchen floors.

Slabs of asphalt, some 20-feet wide, are strewn on fields south of the Skykomish River from washed-out roads.

Cattle and horses are no longer belly-deep in water, but salmon are marooned on pastures.

Weary flood victims in the Skykomish Valley returned yesterday to their homes to shovel mud, scrape silt and worry about what the next heavy rain will bring.

It's not an expertise that they cherish, but Phil and Cindy Jordan are gaining a deep understanding of what it means to live on the river's flood plain.

Two weeks ago their house on Skyview Drive was 4-feet deep in floodwaters. This weekend, the water rose to 6 feet, and the couple and their three children had to take refuge in a local motel.

They still haven't recovered from the Skykomish's first hit. They've been without a kitchen for two weeks. They don't know when they'll get a home-cooked meal now that their refrigerator, stove and other major appliances have washed away.

Like many of Sultan's flood victims, the Jordans have made the Dutch Cup Restaurant on Highway 2 their home away from home.

When the flooding was at its worst this weekend, the Dutch Cup was one of the few Sultan businesses to remain open. The Red Cross has been providing vouchers for food, clothing and shelter to flood victims like the Jordans.

Many doors along Main Street in Sultan were still sandbagged yesterday. Instead of ringing up sales, store owners were pumping out water and drying out stock.

Sultan was flooded from the north by the Sultan River and from the southeast by the Skykomish River.

Larry Koehler, former mayor and owner of the Sultan Sporting Goods store, says Sultan residents should have been forewarned that the Sultan River was deluged with spillover from the Spada Lake Dam. The dam topped over during storms two weeks ago and had barely receded when the area was soaked again this past weekend.

Many Sultan residents, including fire and police officials, apparently wrongly assumed the Snohomish County Public Utility District dumped additional water on Sultan by opening release valves from the dam early Saturday morning.

Nephi Johnson, PUD superintendent of hydro projects, said the water flowing from the dam was strictly spillover from the rain. Yesterday, water was still flowing almost 2 feet above the dam.

``Somebody got that story started, and we've had a lot of calls asking why we opened the dam. We never opened the release valves,'' Johnson said. Early Saturday, he said, water was flowing almost 7 feet above the dam's spillway - the highest flow in the dam's history.

``If the dam broke, Monroe and Snohomish wouldn't be here,'' said Delton Peele, who lives with his 74-year-old father near Main and First streets, near the confluence of the Sultan and Skykomish rivers.

Peele waded through chest-deep water to find a boat to rescue his father and brother when the Sultan filled the first floor of their house with water overnight Friday.

``My dad came upstairs and told me his bed was floating,'' Peele said.

Monroe residents were spared that kind of awakening. The Skykomish River meanders west past Monroe, but most of the city is on a plateau and most of the flood damage was in rural areas to the south of the city and in West Monroe where the Snohomish River backed up when a dike broke.

``Geography is kind to Monroe,'' said Doug Jacobson, city administrator. ``Our business district is on a plateau unlike the town centers of Snohomish and Sultan which were built on flood plains.''

There was nothing kind about the devastation of businesses in the Fryelands industrial park southwest of the Evergreen Fairgrounds.

Donald Palmer, owner of Ladd Drapery, which manufactures drapes, mini-blinds and curtain rods, was watching thousands of dollars of equipment and supplies begin to rust as he waited for his electricity to be restored.