Port Townsend battered by flooding, landslides over the weekend

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A surprising spring soaker left Port Townsend with flooded streets and businesses near downtown, damaged roadways, and left muddy debris slides throughout town.

Landslides and flooding caused the city of Port Townsend to close down multiple roadways, including sections of Kearney and Water streets.

A landslide occurred near the Port Townsend Ferry Terminal on Highway 20, which closed the main drag into downtown just before 3 p.m. Sunday, June 5. Traffic to the terminal was detoured Sunday, according to the Washington State Department of Transportation, until the landslide would be removed.

Homes and businesses in the area were subject to the storm damage and flooding, with numerous buildings on Water Street and Kearney Street overwhelmed with floodwater seeping in. The Port Townsend Food Co-op was one of the storefronts in the area to be flooded, with water surrounding the building’s parking lot and leaving ankle-deep floodwater inside of the store.

“We had an intense storm that overtaxed the capacity of the catch basin grates and the storm system pipes,” said Steve King, public works director for Port Townsend.

“Much of the city infrastructure is old, yet this rarely happens,” he said. “We will be determining the size of the storm event so we can equate it to a return frequency or probability.”

City crews have been busy cleaning up the mess left behind after the flooding, along with assessing the damage to public utilities like roadways, sewer drainage infrastructure, and sidewalks.

“We are still assessing the damage to the public right of way [at the Sims Way and Kearney Street intersection]. Our street crews worked until 9:30 [p.m.] last night and all day today,” King said Monday. “Much of the damage is related to cleanup; however, there were erosion problems on streets like Walnut where the shoulder washed out.”

Jefferson County Emergency Management Director Willie Bence gave a short briefing on Sunday’s storm damage to county commissioners Monday.

A short period of extremely heavy rain caused a small landslide on Water Street and prompted road closures.

“I know our grocery stores were closed for a brief period of time, due to flooding in their parking lots that was seeping into their stores,” Bence said.

“This was an interesting incident, because it was over in such a short period of time,” he said. “There were some thunderstorm systems that were moving throughout the Pacific Northwest, and with those systems they bring really short, heavy, intense periods of rain.”

The stormwater system was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of water that fell in such a short period of time.

“I do have to give a ton of credit to the city of Port Townsend who was able to resolve the issue so quickly,” Bence said, adding that he was surprised that streets were closed for only a few hours.

Emergency management has fielded calls from city residents who had flooded basements.

He noted that federal assistance for damages was unlikely.

“Someone did ask about the possibility of emergency assistance. [The Federal Emergency Management Agency]  does have a program for individual assistance for federally declared disasters, and we’re not pursuing a declaration for this event,” Bend said.

“We’ve actually never had an individual assistance declaration from FEMA here in this county in our history,

so this unfortunately certainly won’t meet that threshold,” he said.

Bence also stressed that people should not try to drive through flooded areas.

“Folks generally underestimate the danger involved in driving in any sort of floodwater. So it’s always best when you see any extreme flooding like that — anything over 6 inches to a foot — turn around, find an alternate route,” he said.