flooding

Christmas is one of the busiest times of the year in the Bavarian style tourist town of Leavenworth. Last week, debris and flooding from an atmospheric river knocked out power across the area for days; including half a million twinkling lights downtown.

Communities throughout Chelan County are getting more intense weather, following an atmospheric river that caused extensive damage throughout the Northwest last week.

Flooding and landslides have left communities along upper Lake Chelan dealing with major damage, nearly a year after wildfire weakened hillsides in the area. A town only accessible by boat is cut off from the rest of the area because of the atmospheric river fallout.

Widespread flooding from an atmospheric river has sent blueberry and dairy farmers scrambling in northwest Washington state.

Emergency responders are urging Washingtonians to take extra precautions and listen to evacuation orders.

In 2023, the state required municipalities in Washington to include climate change plans when thinking about long-term growth and development.“ The…

Rain, flooding, storms – all pretty standard for Western Washington, but sometimes weather patterns spare some areas that have flooded before. That was the case at the beginning of December, when Western Washington got so much rain that it caused flooding from the Stillaguamish River to the town of Rosburg.

After about five years in the works, the Pierce County Council adopted a new Comprehensive Flood Hazard Management Plan that broadens the scope of what kinds of flooding the county will plan for – from coastal to urban flooding. Angela Angove is the floodplain and watershed services manager with Pierce County Planning and Public Works. She said different types of flooding are top of mind for people in the county, recalling the King Tides that caused tidal flooding last December.

In the foothills of Mt. Rainier runs the Carbon, the Puyallup and the White Rivers, meandering through towns and cities, along roadways and near homes, the paint strokes of the natural environment now surrounded by a human-built ecosystem. Once tightly restricted by levees, these rivers are beginning to again flow closer to how they would have, not adhering to the confines and rules of where humans want water to go.

Washington Rep. Steve Tharinger of the 24th district became intimately acquainted with levee setbacks when he discovered the levee protecting his house on the lower Dungeness River was not only not protecting his house, but harming the ecosystem too.“I sold my house and the five acres in a barn we had, so that we'd have more room to move that levee back and give the river more room,” Tharinger said.