Minor flooding follows rain

Published 3:35 pm Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Despite forecasts of potential flooding over the Halloween weekend, the impact of last week’s heavy rain was minimal. Joan Pliego, communications coordinator for the city of Snoqualmie, said that there was no property damage in the city and only one road closure over the weekend.

“There was one tiny section of road closed on 396th and Mill Pond Road for a short time,” Pliego said.

North Bend Public Works Director Mark Rigos reported in a citywide email Friday that minor flooding was possible, but  the forecast “does not include snow melt, so the city of North Bend is not expecting any major or significant flooding to occur.”

North Bend City Administrator Londi Lindell, said that they were keeping an eye on the river, and had emergency responders ready.

“We started the day with one guy out there, but by the end of the day we had five maintenance guys working the city,” Lindell said.

The Snoqualmie River reached a peak of about 35,000 cubic feet per second Saturday, not enough to cause serious flooding. Minor flooding in North Bend caused the closure of Northwest Eighth Street and the North Bend Way park and ride for a short time.

“It takes until about 55,000 (cfs) before it gets bad,” Pliego said. “We still monitor the river in case something changes. If we see predictions at 38,000 or 40,000, we won’t have to open the emergency operations center.”

Neither city had to open its emergency operation center. In this type of scenarios Pliego says its more about letting people know it’s not going to be that bad instead of warning them about the dangers.

“This one was kind of a non-event,” she said.