Brinnon residents saved four houses from possible flooding

By Janet Huck
Leader Staff Writer

It started raining. It kept raining. It didn't stop raining.

By evening on Monday, Oct. 20, the Duckabush and Dosewallips rivers were rising, cresting at 4 feet above normal. Fire District 4 (Brinnon) volunteers waded through 3 feet of water to reach their substation 42 up the Duckabush valley, and managed to get the ambulance out just as the water began leaking through the station walls. The water was up to the ambulance's grill.

The debris on the Dosewallips got so heavy in a short period of time that the river began flooding residential areas. Neighbors banded together to reroute the river down Appaloosa Drive before it flooded houses. At that time, the water was 3.5 feet deep on the street.

It rained so hard Monday it probably set a record in Brinnon. According to District 4 Public Information Officer Kathy Wadkins, it rained an estimated 6 inches in a 24-hour period. When she asked her co-workers if it was a record, the other two starting yelling, "Oh yeah, oh yeah."

"There was a lot of water down there," said Mark Bowes, preparedness coordinator for Jefferson County Emergency Management. "It's not over yet. We are still monitoring the situation with Fire District 4."

In Quilcene, Fire District 2 Chief Bob Wilson reported the Quilcene rivers were up, but "there was only a little bit of water over the roadway.

"At least we got to lift the burn ban," Wilson quipped.

The heavy one-day rainfall in parts of West Puget Sound made records all around the region. Bremerton had 6.52 inches, Shelton had 7.5 inches and Hoodsport had more than 7 inches.

Despite the possible record deluge, there was surprisingly little road or home damage in Jefferson County. Wadkins said the only lasting damage in her tour of Brinnon was a power pole that was suddenly located close to the river. So far she hadn't heard of any homes that had been flooded.

Unlike Clallam County road disasters near Lake Crescent and Neah Bay, no Jefferson roads were blocked or closed as a result of the half-foot of rain. Jefferson County Engineer Bob Turpin reported there was only one spot along the Dosewallips River where the river had eaten away 50 to 60 feet of land on Appaloosa Drive and flooded to the road's edge. He plans to repair it with rock.

Even on the county's West End, the roads stayed open. On Oil City Road at Milepost 9.2 near the road's end, the Hoh River has eaten to the road's shoulder. On the upper Hoh Road at MP 12, there was a dike 100 or 200 feet away from the road that sank as water and debris undermined and topped it. Turpin said the county will rebuild and raise the dike.

Brinnon-area neighbors helped each other. About 25 Appaloosa Drive residents banded together Monday night to save four houses from the rising Dosewallips. The men and women, some only protected from the rain by plastic garbage bags, filled 200 sandbags in 90 minutes. They rerouted the water from the yards and houses, channeling it down the road.

As it poured, the residents encouraged each other with jokes. Two gentlemen whose yard was already flooded came to help their neighbors keep their homes dry. An older woman couldn't fill sandbags, but she held the lights so others could work. Another woman kept the workers warm with coffee. Some woman pitched in with the sandbagging alongside the men.

"We provided the sand and the sand bags," said Bowes. "They provided the people power."

(Contact Janet Huck at jhuck@ptleader.com.)