Flood damage keeps Mt. Rainier National Park shut

Standing on a new storm-created bank of the Nisqually River in Mt. Rainier National Park, Park Ranger Kevin Bacher points out the dangling, disconnected electrical cables that once powered his office six miles away.

Formerly underground, the cables hang over the river. And that’s not all that has changed since a torrential rainstorm struck the park Nov. 5 and 6.

“We had a local resident call in.... He said he saw the comfort station from Sunshine Point [campground] racing down the river,” Bacher said.

Eighteen inches of rain fell on the park in 36 hours, forcing the first weather-related closure of the 107-year-old park.

“It’s completely unprecedented,” Bacher said. “When we went to close the Nisqually gate, it was a problem -- the gate had actually rusted open.”

Park officials say some trails won’t open even by next summer, but they hope to reopen other parts of the park by Christmas.

A “Pineapple Express” storm drenched the region, killing three people, destroying homes, and leaving one town inaccessible for days after a road washed away. Twenty-four Washington counties are still in an official state of flood emergency.

No overall estimate is available yet, but Pierce County, home to Mt. Rainier, estimates that damage to homes and businesses exceeds $40 million.

Other Washington parks and recreation areas in Washington sustained road and trail damage, but Mt. Rainier is the only major recreation area forced to close.

The park hosts more than 1.5 million visitors a year. In winter, parts of the park close when snow blocks higher hiking trails, campgrounds and roads. But Nisqually Road, which follows the Nisqually River, is normally open year-round.

During the storm, the river overran the road, obliterating a quarter-mile of pavement and the entire Sunshine Point campground.

Where there were once fire rings and picnic tables among the trees, the river now flows. One picnic table remains, isolated on a point of land.

A park ranger is stationed at the Nisqually gate to let in employees and explain the closure to the public. Bacher said that over the weekend, rangers guided small groups into the park to see what remained of Sunshine Point.

Park Supt. Dave Uberuaga said that the park had gotten e-mail and phone inquiries from all over the country. “Mt. Rainier is a special place to a lot of people. Closing was not an easy decision,” he said.

But the damage to the park left him no choice.

In addition to the washouts along the Nisqually, where in one area the riverbed has shifted as much as 38 feet, two miles of road have been lost along the Carbon River. At least 10 bridges are out, other roads have been damaged, a helipad is unstable, and a historic cabin is threatened. Scores of trails have been damaged, and wide swaths of old-growth forests were taken down by the rivers.

The park staff has posted a slideshow and videos, shot primarily by helicopter, on the park’s website so the public can get a sense of the devastation. (It’s at www.nps.gov/mora -- under “News” in the left menu, then “November 2006 flooding information.”)

“It’s more rain than we’ve ever had on record over such a short amount of time, under these conditions,” said Paul Kennard, a scientist who studies rivers and river formation for the Park Service.

“It was just the perfect storm,” said Kennard, “huge and timed right, to hit when there was no snow on the ground.” Snow on the ground acts like a sponge, trapping the rain and then releasing it to drain gradually. Lacking a snow buffer, all the water flowed straight into the park’s rivers.

And the rivers themselves have less capacity to hold water than they once did.

Climate change is building up the riverbeds as the mountain’s glaciers slowly recede and more glacial sediment winds up in the rivers each year, Kennard said. “The riverbeds are rising at a rate of about 16 to 17 inches a decade,” he said. Water rises over the banks faster in shallower riverbeds, and floods are more frequent.

Last week, park officials were attempting to assess the damage by helicopter, and in some cases by hiking to more remote sites.

The season’s first big snowfall hit a few days after the rain, and assessments of some areas of the 365-square-mile park will have to wait until spring.

Supt. Uberuaga, who has been at Mt. Rainier for 22 years, said that although the damage was sobering, seeing the park by helicopter was almost a relief.

“I was going over it in my mind, all night, site by site -- we might lose this, we might lose that,” Uberuaga said. “In the end, no one was hurt, and the damage we have -- it’s extensive, and parkwide, but it is repairable. It will take a lot of work, time and money, but it could have been so much worse.”

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lynn.marshall@latimes.com