Rains Bring Whoosh of Flood Waters Through Pacific Northwest

Hundreds of people fled their homes and hundreds of roadways were closed by high water and mudslides as unrelenting rain brought Oregon’s worst flooding in more than 30 years.

Most of the major east-west routes in Washington state also were shut by flooding.

The coastal town of Tillamook, Ore., was cut off, and much of its downtown was under 6 to 7 feet of water. Coast Guard and county rescue boats were ferrying people, sometimes catching propellers on roofs of submerged cars.

Coastal rivers and small creeks gushed over their banks and fed the Willamette River, which meanders through farmland and cities from Eugene to its confluence with the Columbia in Portland.

The Willamette was expected to crest 5 feet above flood stage Friday, posing a threat to Corvallis and later Salem and Portland. Tom Worden, spokesman for the state emergency management office, said the flooding would approach levels last seen in 1964.

Torrential rain began falling Monday, melting several inches of snow and ice that had encased the region. The downpour was not expected to end until sometime today, after an accumulated 6 inches of rainfall.

The same band of rain combined with melting snow in eastern Washington and western Idaho to push rivers over their banks onto roads and into homes. Volunteers filled thousands of sandbags in Pullman, home of Washington State University, in an effort to hold back Palouse River.

High water is not uncommon this time of year in coastal Oregon, but the river already had risen above 100-year levels in Tillamook, said Paul Levesque, emergency services director there. Gov. John Kitzhaber declared a state of emergency in Tillamook County.

State police used a boat to help evacuate people in Mapleton, an unincorporated town of a few hundred people in the coastal mountains west of Eugene.

Homes and apartments were flooded along streams in the Portland and Eugene areas and in Clackamas County, which includes Portland’s southern suburbs.

Hundreds of logs that had been bundled for transport down the Willamette broke loose, and traffic was halted in downtown Portland as they careened past bridge supports. A raft containing hundreds more logs was wrapped around a piling beneath the Marquam Bridge on Interstate 5.

On the southeast side of Mt. Hood, a two-story log cabin slid down a hillside near Welches, but the elderly couple inside were not injured, officials said.

In Lincoln County, the new home of Keiko the whale from the “Free Willy” movies, “it’s just one endless pool of water out there,” said Jim Hawley, emergency services director. “He’s probably swimming on Highway 101 by now.”