A state of emergency has been declared and tens of thousands of people have been ordered to leave their homes in Western Washington after historic rain left rivers at record levels across the state.
Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson begged residents to follow evacuation orders.
“This situation is extremely unpredictable,” Ferguson said at a news conference Thursday afternoon. “The flooding levels we’re looking at are potentially historic in nature.”
Ferguson told NBC News just after the news conference, “The next 48 hours are absolutely critical.”
Skagit County has ordered everyone in the Skagit River 100-year floodplain to evacuate to higher ground, as authorities have forecast 18 major floods and 15 moderate floods.
More than 5 million people were under flood alerts Thursday morning, including in parts of Montana and a small part of Idaho. Ten to 18 inches of rain have fallen over the Cascade and Olympic mountain ranges in the last 72 hours.
In a statement on social media late Wednesday, Ferguson said 100,000 people could face evacuation orders.
The Skagit River is expected to crest at a record 47 feet in the mountain town of Concrete — the threshold for a major flooding event along the Skagit is 32 feet. Some rivers are expected to reach their highest levels early Thursday.
"You don’t know how deep it is, you don’t know how swift it is, and this is what happens, you get stuck there, and then it’s a situation that you can’t control," Napavine Police Chief John Brockmueller warned drivers.
Colton Petit, the owner of Reliable Concrete Pumping, which is along the river in Snohomish, said he watched the floodwater rush into his shop.
"When I was sitting up in my office, I could just see it start coming up," Petit said Thursday. Once the river crested, "it gained 2 feet in, like, 30 minutes."
As the water entered his shop, Petit said, he stood and watched.
"There’s nothing you can really do," he said. "You've just got to wait for the damage to be done and figure it out when it’s all done."
On Thursday, the Snohomish River reached a record flood stage at 33.99 feet.
Almost 20,000 energy customers were without power early Thursday, about half of them in Chelan County, according to PowerOutage.us.
At least 300 National Guard troops have been mobilized to the state, and local emergency response crews with boats were activated. Stranded people in vehicles were rescued overnight in Fall City.
"We feel very confident that we can handle a ‘normal flood,’ but no one really knows what a 41-, 42-foot river looks like south of Mount Vernon," Darrin Morrison, a commissioner for Dike District 3 in Skagit County, said at a public meeting Wednesday night.
There has been more than 10 inches of rain in parts of Washington and northwest Oregon in recent days, and conditions continued into early Thursday before they finally weakened.
Seattle was hit with 12 to 16 inches of rain in 72 hours.
"While the rain will diminish tonight into early Friday, ongoing major river flooding and the threat of landslides will continue across portions of western Washington state and northwest Oregon for several days," the National Weather Service said in an update early Thursday.
Authorities have not confirmed the number of people ordered to evacuate; estimates range from 75,000 to 100,000. Parts of Mount Vernon, a city of about 35,000 people north of Seattle long plagued by flooding, are in the evacuation zone.
Mount Vernon was entering major flood levels around 8 a.m. Thursday. The Skagit River is expected to continue rising and crest near Mount Vernon at about 10 a.m. Friday.
Areas also under evacuation orders are parts of the town of Sedro-Woolley, Orting, Ebey Island, land around the Puyallup River and Sumner.
A flood wall was installed in Mount Vernon in 2018 to protect low-lying downtown areas, and it protected the city during heavy rain and high river levels in 2021. But locals now fear the wall could be breached.
Ellen Gamson, executive director of the Mount Vernon Downtown Association, told The Associated Press that "it could potentially be catastrophic."
The Lummi Nation, which includes several Native American tribes in Western Washington based west of Bellingham, declared a state of emergency.
"Continued tidal influence, rainfall, or additional flooding may result in the Reservation becoming temporarily isolated until conditions improve," Vice Chairman Terrence Adams wrote in a news release Wednesday.
The cause of the emergency is a persistent atmospheric river, which has dumped an extraordinary amount of rain on the Pacific Northwest this week, leaving rivers as much as 15 feet above their normal levels.
People across Skagit County were preparing Wednesday by filling sandbags and shutting off utilities ahead of the expected deluge.
On Thursday morning, flooding began in Everson, which was hit with catastrophic floods in 2022.
The American Red Cross has opened several volunteer-led shelters across the state. Their locations can be found here or by calling 1-800-RED CROSS (800-733-2767).
