Northwest Flood Victims Heading Home

While key highways remained closed, Pacific Northwest flood victims started to return to their homes Sunday and begin the heartbreaking task of assessing damage.

The sun was out Sunday and the weather dry, in contrast to recent torrential rains that dumped up to 30 inches in four days, melted a heavy snowpack in the Cascade Mountains and triggered massive landslides.

President Clinton was scheduled to travel to Portland on Wednesday to inspect the flood damage, a White House official said.

Washington state emergency official Tom Griffith said county and city crews were cleaning roads and inspecting bridges.

“We’re just sort of in a transition from response to recovery,” he said.

“Most of the streams and rivers except the Columbia have gone down significantly. People are starting to return and assess damage.”

The floods, the worst since 15 people were killed in 1964, left five dead and thousands homeless.

While waters were receding, officials predicted it would be days before rivers returned to normal levels.

The Willamette River was expected to remain above flood stage until Wednesday and the Columbia was not expected to return to its banks until Friday, officials said.

Residents in the Portland area were under an advisory to conserve water because of mud in the main reservoir that houses the city’s water.

Federal officials have visited the scene, assessing damage. James Lee Witt, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, toured the hardest-hit areas over the weekend and Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman visited a coastal area where hundreds of dairy cows were feared to have perished in flooding waters.

FEMA has set up a hotline to begin distributing aid to individuals and businesses after Clinton on Friday declared 30 counties in Washington and Oregon a major disaster area.

Million-dollar homes in the Lake Oswego, Ore., area remained under water. While the Red Cross has opened more than 40 shelters throughout the region, many people were staying with friends and relatives.

The Port of Portland, the nation’s largest inland port, remained closed with ships anchored in the Columbia River.

FEMA officials also pledged funds for road cleanup.

A 12-mile stretch of Interstate 5, the major north-south highway, remained closed south of Seattle.

Trucks and cars took detours that added up to five hours to the ride and hundreds of dollars to each commercial vehicle trip.

Portions of I-84 in Oregon were also closed, while roadblocks were erected in Washington state on a stretch of I-82 south of Yakima.