1,000 Forced to Flee Floods in Washington State

Rivers bloated by days of heavy rain remained out of their banks Wednesday in Washington state and an estimated 1,000 people had been forced to flee, but high water in some Oregon communities began receding, authorities said.

Rainfall eased during the morning, with the National Weather Service predicting only scattered showers for the next few days after a series of windy storms that began Saturday. The wind blew down thousands of trees, broke power lines and blew off roofs, officials said.

Three deaths were blamed on the storms in the Northwest, with a body found floating Wednesday in a flooded area in Lewis County. Two earlier deaths were reported in Oregon.

The worst flooding in Washington was in Centralia, a town of about 11,000 in the southwestern part of the state where 4 1/2 inches of rain fell in 24 hours. Fire Chief Chuck Newbury said about 400 people were evacuated after a dike along the Skookumchuck River failed during the night.

Newbury said water in one neighborhood was 3 feet to 4 feet deep Wednesday.

“The dike has been breached and they couldn’t hold it back with sandbags,” Newbury said. “It’s just threatening property at the moment. . . . We don’t foresee any life-threatening problems.”

Officials also evacuated the Centralia Convalescent Center, which has about 60 patients, because of flooding from the Chehalis River. The Skookumchuck joins the Chehalis just outside town.

Lewis County officials estimated that about 30,000 sandbags had been used to shore up river banks and protect buildings.

Sheriff’s Sgt. John McCroskey said Pe Ell, parts of Winlock and other communities in western Lewis County were virtually inaccessible by road.

Along the northern coast of Oregon, water was receding Wednesday in Clatsop and Tillamook counties, where severe flooding prompted Gov. Neil E. Goldschmidt to declare a state of emergency Tuesday.

In downtown Nehalem, a town of 240 people 25 miles north of Tillamook, 2 1/2 feet of water covered U.S. Highway 101 on Tuesday, but the water had dropped to less than a foot by late Wednesday, City Manager Merlin Brown said.

“It’s more serious than we’ve had for a lot of years but not total disaster by any means,” he said.

Clatsop County Sheriff John Raichl said flooding in the southern part of his county was the worst in decades. At the height of the flooding, water was 6 feet deep on some county roads.

Businesses also were flooded along U.S. Highway 101 in north Tillamook and in southern Clatsop County. Thirty-seven people were evacuated from low-lying areas of southern Clatsop County and along the lower Nehalem River in northern Tillamook County.