Thursday, January 8, 2009

Bellingham Floods!

The last couple days have been epic at our main office in Bellingham. It has been raining really hard non-stop and much of the city is underwater. This morning, we realized that we too were partly underwater. Our basement is drenched with nearly a foot of flood water covering the floor.

Program coordinator and guide, Coley Gentzel checks out the flood.
Photo by Ruth Hennings

The rest of Whatcom County is not doing much better. Over three inches of rain fell in a six hour period yesterday. A mudslide washed across the Mount Baker Highway, trapping people on either side of the slide with no way to get around it. And obviously our local ski hill, the Mount Baker Ski Area, is not operating today.

The passes across the Cascades are currently closed. Stevens, Snoqualmie and White Pass are alll currently impassable. Road crews are working to manage avalanches and mudslides throughout the state, but specifically in the passes.

To see more pictures of the flooding in Bellingham, check out the Bellingham Herald's gallery, here.

--Jason D. Martin

Update - 1:36 pm:

Here's a photo from the WDOT Flickr account of the mudslide on Mount Baker Highway:


It's like the Day After Tomorrow around here!

--JM

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