Steve Mansfield, the director of the county’s department of emergency management, talks with David Curtis, of West Consultants, at the annual pre-flood preparation meeting on Tuesday at the Veterans Memorial Museum in Chehalis.
Steve Mansfield, director of the Lewis County department of emergency services, addresses first responders, law enforcement officials and others during the annual pre-flood preparation meeting on Tuesday at the Veterans Memorial Museum in Chehalis.
As the 10-year anniversary of the December 2007 floods that slammed Lewis County approaches, weather experts from the National Weather Service have stated they expect a colder than average winter with increased precipitation that could lead to floods, wind storms and lowland snow.
“At the moment, La Nina conditions have developed across the eastern equatorial Pacific waters and we currently have a La Nina watch from the Climate Prediction Center,” Ted Buehner, with the NWS, said at a meeting earlier this week. “… We are looking at floods, wind storms and lowland snow events.”
La Nina is when the sea surface temperatures in the Pacific are cooler than average. During a La Nina weather pattern, the jet stream is at the latitude of Washington state, which tends to bring cooler and wetter weather.
Buehner clarified that the area may not necessarily see all three of those events this winter season, but stressed the importance of being prepared for the winter months to law enforcement and first responders.
“We saw a dress rehearsal of cold weather outbreak in the last week,” Buehner said. “It wouldn’t surprise me to see more of those before the season is over. The odds are tipped toward maybe a major flood or windstorm, so we need to pay attention to that.”
Brent Bower, also with the NWS, said La Nina conditions do not predict the strength of storms, but instead focus is on how consistent the patterns will be with the weather events.
“In a La Nina year, there is increased frequencies for various events, but it does not predict any specific event or floods, or even that there even will be any,” he said. “… Generally the larger floods happen a little more frequently in neutral years and are pretty close in frequency in La Nina years.”
Since the 2007 flood, there has been a lot of work in the area to update equipment so that the best available information is provided in a quicker fashion.
Lewis County Commissioner Edna Fund said leaders in the Chehalis River Basin have been working relentlessly toward flood mitigation with a number of groups participating.
“We’re working hard on projects,” she said, mentioning a proposed dam near Pe Ell that recently reached the permitting phases. “Progress is being made. It’s tough, it’s slow going, but we need to continue. Today we are talking about what if we have a flood and are given some tools.”
Steve Mansfield, director of the county’s emergency management department, said the annual pre-flood preparation meeting that was held on Nov. 7 at the Veterans Memorial Museum in Chehalis is a good way to get the community together to see what tools are at hand if a weather event does occur.
“The risks we face, they are everywhere. They are all around us,” he said. “… We can’t stop a lot of them, but we can mitigate those risks through preparedness.”
During the meeting, various agencies presented information on efforts in the basin. David Curtis, of West Consultants, stated the Chehalis River Basin Flood Warning System website is a good place to get relevant information, such as weather, rainfall and river forecasts, river gage data and updates on road conditions.
“We try to keep community engagement at a high level,” Curtis said. “We’ve created a system that provides a benefit to the user so they come back and get more information.”
Ron Averill, with the Chehalis River Basin Flood Authority, provided an overview of local projects the agency has worked on.
He referred to the proposed dam near Pe Ell as a good starting point to reduce flood damages.
“We needed to make progress because the population says you’ve studied this thing since 1913 and you are not getting anywhere,” he said. “The two things we’ve always concentrated on is warning ... and the second area is to do something to provide local relief projects that we have implemented and some of which have been finished.”
Since 2010, the flood authority has spent about $30 million on local projects.
In the 2015-17 biennium, the flood authority funded the installation of 10 gauges on the Chehalis River to improve the system and provide more reliable data.
Those in attendance received an update on a recently completed tour of the site that will potentially be home to the dam, as well as a levee tour, which showed the four structures in the Twin Cities area are in good shape.
United Way of Lewis County also presented information on the partnership with the county’s emergency management group. Debbie Campbell, executive director of United Way, said there are 82 individuals who have committed to volunteer if a large flood or earthquake happened.
Other interested parties can sign up at Volunteer Lewis County online at lewiscountyuw.galaxydigital.com/.
