Inslee declares state of emergency due to flooding, landslides

[ScienceRocks]

Inslee declares state of emergency due to flooding, landslides

Source: king5.com

KING 5 News, KING5.com 10:27 p.m. PST December 9, 2015


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(Photo: KING)

Governor Jay Inslee proclaimed a state of emergency after heavy rainstorms caused flooding and landslides across Western Washington.
A landslide covered and shut down northbound lanes of I-5 near Woodland in southwest Washington.
Water has flooded the Chehalis, Centralia communities. Sheriff says Lewis County is experiencing its worst flooding since 2007.
Around 17,000 customers are without power, mostly in Puget Sound Energy's coverage area.
Seven transients were rescued from the Puyallup River. Multiple rivers are under a flood warning.
2 Burien homes were damaged by landslides. Hillside remains unstable, nearby homes evacuated.
Mudslides close US 2 near Leavenworth, US 12 at White Pass.
Up-to-the-minute weather updates

SEATTLE – Governor Jay inslee on Wednesday declared a state of emergency in Washington after days of heavy rain caused rivers to rise, flooding and landslides across Western Washington. Multiple rivers remained under a flood warning.............

Read more: Inslee declares state of emergency due to flooding, landslides

Just amazing what is occurring just to my north!!!

 

[RoshawnMarkwees]

Didn't they have a major landslide up that way just last year? Like a whole town was buried.

 

[waltky]

Miss. River is 38 feet over normal levels...

Southern states brace for surging Mississippi River flooding
Fri, Jan 1 2016 - Residents of southern states along the Mississippi River are bracing for the flooding that has swamped communities from the Ohio River Valley to eastern Oklahoma over the last week, causing thousands of evacuations and killing at least 31 people.

Officials in Louisiana are checking levees daily, and Exxon Mobil Corp has decided to shut its 340,571 barrel-per-day refined products terminal in Memphis, Tennessee, as floodwaters threatened to inundate the facility just south of the city's downtown. "All that water's coming south and we have to be ready for it," Louisiana Lieutenant Governor-Elect Billy Nungesser told CNN. "It's a serious concern. It's early in the season. We usually don't see this until much later."

The Mississippi River is pictured flooding parts of downtown St. Louis, Missouri​

Workers in southwestern Tennessee were preparing sandbags on Friday in hopes of limiting damage from the Mississippi when it crests at Memphis next week, state emergency management officials said. Officials were also examining levees, to make sure they would hold. "We're moving things up high and we've got our generators out and got some extra water," said Dotty Kirkendoll, a clerk at Riverside Park Marina on McKellar Lake, which feeds off the Mississippi. Flooding in the U.S. Midwest typically occurs in the spring as snowmelt swells rivers. Freezing temperatures that have followed the rare winter flooding have added to regional woes.

Most of the deaths in Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas have been caused by people driving into flooded areas after days of downpours. The dead included a central Illinois teenager whose body was recovered on Friday near where a truck in which he was riding was found the day before. Another teen from the truck was still missing. Authorities also continued searching on Friday for country singer Craig Strickland, who had gone duck hunting on an Oklahoma lake during stormy conditions. His friend, Chase Morland, was found dead on Monday.

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See also:

Weird weather welcomes in 2016
Sat, Jan 02, 2016 - EXCEPTIONAL CONDITIONS: Storms buffeting the North Sea brought havoc to oilfields, with one man reported killed by a giant wave hitting an oil rig, and hundreds evacuated

With temperatures above freezing at the North Pole, deadly tornadoes in Texas, extreme heat in Australia, and floods in Britain and Missouri, the world is beset by extreme weather events as it welcomes in the New Year. A powerful and destructive low-pressure system in the North Atlantic has pushed the mercury up to 2?C at the North pole, 20?C above the seasonal norm. The Arctic has borne the brunt of global warming, with temperatures 3?C higher than the pre-industrial era, but linking the current mild conditions to climate change is premature, warned Natalie Hasell, meteorologist at the Canadian Department of the Environment, saying that scientists do not base their conclusions “on one anomaly.”

A neighborhood is submerged in floodwater from the cresting Meremac River in Arnold, Missouri​

The North Atlantic depression also brought eastern Canada an unusually warm holiday period, with temperatures hitting 15.9?C in Montreal on Christmas Eve, about 20?C above the seasonal average. That was followed by heavy snowfall. In the US, tornadoes and floods left at least 49 dead. The waters of the mighty Mississippi River have already exceeded overflow levels by 4m in some areas, claiming 13 lives. In the south, spectacular tornadoes devastated parts of Texas. The common cause of the unusual events is a particularly strong El Nino system, amplified by global warming, scientists said.

El Ninos, which emerge every four to seven years on average and run from October through this month, are triggered by a shift in trade winds across the Pacific around the Equator. However, last year’s episode is “probably the strongest in the last 100 years,” said Jerome Lecou, forecaster at Meteo-France. “There is no simple answer” to explain the exceptional conditions, he added. Although centered on the Pacific Ocean, El Nino “has an impact on a global scale,” said Jean Jouzel, former vice president of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “Generally, El Nino years are warmer than average.” In Australia, scorching heat has led to large forest fires and temperatures are forecast to soon hit 38?C in the south.

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[Dana7360]

Didn't they have a major landslide up that way just last year? Like a whole town was buried.

Yes it's actually called a mudslide here.

The reason for them is because of logging. The trees have been cut down and there's nothing to hold the dirt in place.

The roots of the trees and plants in the forest keep the dirt and mud from collapsing to cause the mudslide. That dirt is held in place where it should be and the side of the hill doesn't come down all over the road and valley.

If there was better logging rules that didn't allow complete large tracts of trees to be clear cut, and if the clear cutting wasn't allowed on the top of the hill, the mudslides wouldn't happen as badly or as often.

 

[Spinster]

Didn't they have a major landslide up that way just last year? Like a whole town was buried.

In the spring of 2014 the community of Oso had a mountain slide off, killing many, injuring many, and Obummer even flew out and toured the damage. It was a horrible event, and now the roadway through there is 22 feet higher than the old one due to the amount of material from the slide. It looks like a moon scape with mounds of dirt sifted through to locate bodies.

 

[waltky]

The floating dead...

Louisiana flooding sends caskets far and wide
May 7, 2016 — Widespread flooding not only disrupts the living but sometimes also creates havoc for the dead.

That's what happened in southwest Louisiana's Calcasieu Parish when an overflowing Sabine River — helped by days of heavy rain — recently pushed water inland about four miles, disturbing graves buried in at least five cemeteries in the towns of Vinton and Starks. The parish Coroner's Office last month completed the recovery of caskets and vaults or lids that floated from their resting places during flooding March 12 and beyond. Charlie Hunter, a coroner's investigator, said the graves are typically surface vaults, meaning three-fourths of the vault is under ground with the lid only above ground. "When water is over the top of the grave for extended periods of time, the pressure causes the grave to either pop the lid or float the entire vault," he said.

By comparison, the graves in New Orleans are above ground because the area is considered below sea level and would fill with water if crews dug too deep. Officials said 88 caskets were recovered, most from Niblett's Bluff Cemetery in Vinton. "There was catastrophic damage there," Hunter said. The other cemeteries affected were Wimberly in Vinton; Doyle annex, Fountain and VFW all in Starks. "Some of those vaults affected weighed 1,800 to 2,000 pounds and they were found 100 to 200 yards from the cemetery. People just don't understand the power of water," Hunter said.

Caskets float away from a nearby cemetery during flooding from heavy rains in Calcasieu Parish, La. The parish Coroner's Office earlier this month completed the recovery of caskets and vaults or lids that floated from their resting places during flooding March 12 and beyond. Officials said 85 caskets were recovered, most from Niblett's Bluff Cemetery in Vinton. The recovered remains have been placed in refrigerated trucks parked at the coroner's office as investigators begin the identification and re-interment process.​

Emily Dalfrey, who lived about 800 feet from Niblett's Bluff, said the graves of nine family members — including her great-grandmother — were disrupted there and she lost her home to the floodwaters. "It's been very emotional," she said, a slight break in her voice. "But the coroner's office has been a tremendous help. They were out there, while the waters were still rising, tying off caskets that had floated away." Hunter said because the area previously went through significant storms, like Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Ike, the parish government had a plan in place to handle grave disturbances. "We had a good heads up that this was coming, having gone through it before," Hunter said.

So crews were sent to several cemeteries in the projected flood area before the severe weather to document and photograph where and how many graves might be affected. "We were able to secure those caskets or vaults to fence posts and in other ways before they floated away," Hunter said. "We did the best we could to make sure they would not leave the cemeteries." The remains that did get loose have been recovered and placed in refrigerated trucks parked at the coroner's office as investigators begin the identification and re-interment process. "This has been heartbreaking," said Shannon Bellard-Amy, 38, of Lake Charles, who had relatives buried at Niblett's Bluff. "I know they're not there (in the grave) but in a sense they are because that's their final resting place. We came back the day after the water receded and it was like a bomb went off in that cemetery. The devastation was unreal. Vaults were everywhere but most devastating was that there were so many empty spaces." Bellard-Amy had 10 relatives' graves disinterred.

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