BURLINGTON, Wash. (AP) — National Guard troops went door-to-door early Friday to evacuate a farming city north of Seattle as severe flooding throughout western Washington stranded families on rooftops, washed over bridges and ripped homes from their foundations.
Gov. Bob Ferguson, who has warned that as many as 100,000 people would need to evacuate statewide, said Friday the Trump administration has approved a disaster declaration.
Days of torrential rain have swelled rivers to record or near-record levels. Officials issued “go now” orders Wednesday to tens of thousands of residents in the Skagit River flood plain, including in the city of Burlington, home to nearly 10,000 people. By Friday morning, muddy water overflowed a slough and rushed into homes, prompting more urgent warnings.
“ALL RESIDENTS IN THE CITY OF BURLINGTON SHOULD EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY,” Skagit County wrote on social media.
By late morning the evacuation order was lifted for part of the city, police department spokesperson Michael Lumpkin said.
The Skagit River drains a wide swath of the rugged Cascade Range before winding west across broad, low-lying farmlands on its way to Puget Sound. Cities like Burlington sit on that flat stretch between the mountains and the sea, leaving them especially vulnerable to floods.
National Guard fans out amid flood evacuations
National Guard members knocked on hundreds of doors to tell residents about the evacuation notice and help transport them to a shelter if needed, Lumpkin said. The water was reportedly two to three feet (0.6 to 0.9 meters) deep in certain areas as it flooded homes, he said.
While water levels appeared to ease later in the morning, “it’s definitely not an all clear,” Lumpkin said.
Mario Rincon had been staying at a hotel with his family, including a week-old infant. They returned to his Burlington property Friday but couldn’t get inside to assess the damage, as murky floodwaters reached part-way up the first floor. He had moved some items upstairs in anticipation.
“It’s going to be a few days before the water recedes,” he said. “We’re going to be looking where to stay in the meantime, and it’s kind of difficult because my mom and my mother-in-law are visiting from Mexico until the end of December for the holidays.”
The heaviest rain is over in the region, but the impact remains widespread. The Skagit River will be slow to recede and some rivers in the Cascades have yet to crest, while other major rivers are still above flood stage, said Jeff Michalski, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Seattle.
Even as floodwaters go down, another weather system is approaching and could move through beginning Sunday, Michalski said.
“Depending on each river, it could prolong the flooding or renew the flooding,” he said.
Further north near the U.S.-Canada border, the cities of Sumas, Nooksack and Everson were evacuated after being inundated. The border crossing at Sumas was closed.
The mayor of Sumas, Bruce Bosch, said much of the city has been “devastated” by the high waters — just four years after a similar flood. In a social media message, he said it would take most of Friday for water levels to drop enough to allow people back, and acknowledged that the community was anxious to return to their homes.
“Me too,” the mayor wrote. “Hang in there.”
Debris, mudslides and standing water have blocked roads and highways across the state, leading to closures.
Flooding rivers break records
A number of rivers were in flood stage overnight, including the Skagit. The river crested over 37 feet (11 meters) in the valley’s biggest city, Mount Vernon, surpassing the previous record by a few inches, according to the National Water Prediction Service.
Mount Vernon has been long plagued by flooding, but a wall completed in 2018 held fast and protected the downtown area from what otherwise would have been catastrophic flooding.
The Snohomish River surged nearly a foot (30 centimeters) higher than its record Thursday in the picturesque city that shares its name.
The waters stopped just short of getting inside Mariah Brosa’s raised riverfront home in Concrete, but the raging Skagit River still slapped debris against her home and totaled her fiance’s work car, she said.
“I didn’t think it would come this high,” she said.
Officials respond to flooding
Authorities across Washington state in recent days have rescued people from cars and homes after the weather phenomenon known as an atmospheric river soaked the region.
Helicopters rescued two families on Thursday from the roofs of homes in Sumas that had been flooded by about 15 feet (4.6 meters) of water, according Frank Cain Jr., battalion chief for Whatcom County Fire District 14.
In nearby Welcome, erosion from the floodwaters caused at least two houses to collapse into the Nooksack River, he said. No one was inside at the time.
In a football field in Snoqualmie, a herd of elk swam and waded through neck-high water.
Climate change has been linked to some intense rainfall. Scientists say that without specific study they cannot directly link a single weather event to climate change, but in general it’s responsible for more intense and more frequent extreme storms, droughts, floods and wildfires.
This story has been updated to correct the spelling of the last name of Jeff Michalski, from Michalsky in earlier versions of the story.
Rush reported from Portland, Oregon. Associated Press writers Gene Johnson and Hallie Golden in Seattle; Martha Bellisle in Issaquah, Washington; Mark Thiessen in Anchorage, Alaska; Mead Gruver in Fort Collins, Colorado; and Corey Williams in Detroit contributed to this report.
