Stormy weather...

and I'm not talking about the song! After last Sunday's snow we had a big storm blow in and soak the whole area with torrential rain. In the Olympian today they said we got 10 inches of rain here on the west side from Sunday to Monday. Gotta be a record.

And we had major flooding all over the region, to the point where several counties have been named federal disaster areas. A 20 mile section of Interstate 5 to the south of us was closed for 5 days because there was 10 feet of water over the roadway in places. They finally got the water down and one lane each direction cleared of mud and debris so they could get the truck traffic moving again. Yesterday they opened the rest of the lanes to all traffic. They figure that alone cost $4 million a day.

Schools all over the region have been closed and we still have people without power after a week. Thousands of people have lost everything, their homes, their jobs, their businesses. And of course, flooding and landslides pretty much aren't covered under most people's insurance. It's all very sad. Lots to pray for. It will take months to recover and millions upon millions of dollars.

Here are a couple pictures from around our area so you can get an idea of how much rainfall we are talking about. They are spectacular examples of how deep it got around here.

This is looking south from Cooper Point and Black Lake toward the freeway. Our house is about a mile and a half south of here. If you've been to either our old house in Oly or our new one you've likely driven through this intersection.



With the road closed the city took out the island barriers for the turn lanes further up Black Lake Blvd. and routed traffic through the I-HOP-Walgreen's-Family Christian parking lot.

This is the same corner, but looking west. This gas station is on a hill and you can see there are cars submerged in the water. Note the road sign on the right near the trees. Pretty deep.



There was flooding all over, including farther down Cooper Point near Capital Mall Drive water was gushing out of the storm drain and the catch basins at Yauger Park overflowed.



The flooding is so bad that we've made the national news too...prompting a couple of calls to check on our welfare. Not to worry, we are fine. We had a little water seep in through the cinder block foundation of the garage wall, but Ralph just kept it swept out all day. Some of the neighbors downhill from us had water in their houses and rivers running through their yards, all the rainwater making it's way down to the lake. The road we live on was closed for a while on Monday and they were just opening it again as I got home from work. The hill behind us drained for two full days, so we had a little runoff going down our driveway from that. We were fortunate to say the least.

Please keep folks in this region in your prayers as the recovery continues.