Washington Town Fights Flood; Snow in Northeast : Storm: Wet weather puts a small city on sandbagging detail. Other Northwest rivers were returning to normal levels.

Hundreds of volunteers turned out to help National Guard and Army Corps of Engineer troops Sunday in efforts to save downtown Mt. Vernon from the rain-swollen Skagit River.

“We are in a full flood fight,” said Dave Brookings, Skagit County assistant flood control engineer.

Elsewhere, many of the more than 500 residents displaced by near-record flooding near seven northwest Washington rivers were returning to their homes, and most dikes and levees in low-lying areas were holding.

Three houses in an isolated resort town were lost, and officials said that damage to roads, bridges, houses and businesses from flooding Friday and Saturday would run into millions of dollars.

High water, slides and washouts closed numerous roads and highways, including the Trans Canada Highway north of Hope, British Columbia, about 90 miles east of Vancouver.

No injuries were reported.

The three-day deluge was produced by what National Weather Service forecasters call the “Pineapple Express,” a fall storm route from Hawaii to the Pacific Northwest.

In Mt. Vernon, with a population of about 14,500, Brookings said that 400 to 500 people helped to fill sandbags as the Skagit River crested at 35.2 feet, 7.2 feet over flood stage.

Sandbags were piled three to four feet atop a 34-foot revetment that protects the downtown area, Brookings said.

“This is all just flat farmland,” he said. “After it gets over the levees, that water just keeps spreading.”

Elsewhere, rain and snow Sunday were scattered from the Great Lakes into the Northeast.

Snow fell over northern Maine during the early afternoon, and from south-central New York state across east-central New York state. Snow showers extended over southern and eastern Michigan. Rain was scattered over northeastern Illinois and southeastern Wisconsin.

A winter weather advisory was posted into early today over New York’s western Mohawk Valley and the western Adirondack Mountains. Wind gusts were expected to exceed 30 m.p.h. today and produce windchill factors below zero.

Atop 6,200-foot Mt. Washington in New Hampshire, the highest mountain in the Northeast, the temperature was 5 degrees with winds gusting to nearly 115 m.p.h. The windchill factor was 46 below zero.