Geography/History

We had so much rain Friday and Saturday that we were placed in Flood Watch, and Flood Warning. Sunday the rains slowed down and the winds calmed so we ventured out to show Selena just what it means to be under a Flood Watch.

We have seen the floods a lot worse then these pictures will show, but these are great examples of what we endure every year during this time of year as well as again in the Spring.

You can clearly see that the Chehalis River, the one closest to our home, and the one that flows to the Ocean is muddy and quite high, with debris being carried down it in the wild currents. Now to get this picture I did something that I should never have done and I do not ever recommend doing. When we first got to this popular fishing area, yes, we could see water across a tiny section of the road. Yes, I drove through it, but it didn’t really hit me what I had done until we were ready to leave and I could see it was actually not standing water but running water, very dangerous! DON’T DRIVE THROUGH WATER OVER ROADWAY!

Yes, we had to drive back through it to get out of there, and yes the current was pretty strong. I will never do that again!

We headed for another popular fishing area this time on the Satsop River. This area is right along the Highway.

NO I did not even get close to this water, this is usually a parking lot, but now it is a part of the river. The next pictures shows how the river is over its banks into the farmland in this area.

We then drove further upstream on the Satsop river to another very popular fishing area. Only to come to this.

You can see in the first picture the road just disappears. In the second picture is the water that had made its way along the side of this road. With no place to turn around I had to back up all the way back to the highway.

The following pictures show the Satsop River which caused this mess above, from the Highway.

Can you see the fence line that is now under water?

Here is a better view with the fence line and telephone pole under water.

Does that look like a road here in this picture? Well, guess what it is.

Again here is a picture of the Satsop as it flows under the bridge where we were parked. It is so muddy and the current is so strong. Again you can see debris in this river as well.

This as I said is something we deal with every year usually early Winter and again in the Spring. There were so many other things that we just could not stop and get pictures of, like houses that were totally cut off from the raging rivers. Farmers fields looking like huge lakes. We remain under flood watch through Monday afternoon, and there is concern of mudslides. While we live in such a beautiful place, we also live in an area that is very well known for it’s destructive acts of nature.

Selena and I discussed the many reasons that floods occur, from so much rain, which is what we received to cause this flooding, to the thawing snow in the Spring in the mountains. I am not sure that Selena really understood this concept so we might do some science experiments in order to explain this more clearly to her. Rather she did understand or not, she did exclaim that she had a fun drive and only wished she could have seen all the fish that she knows are in these rivers.