I-5 still closed; Wash. flood damage could top $1 billion

CENTRALIA -- For evacuees returning to homes still swamped by several feet of brown water, the personal toll from this week's floods was obvious, devastating and in some cases complete.

But the full extent of the losses remains an open question as state officials scramble to quantify and respond to the misery.

The devastation is so widespread that emergency management officials are unable to provide even rough estimates of how much damage has taken place.

"We are talking an unfathomable amount," said Kyle Herman, a spokesman for the state Emergency Management Division, which is collecting data from local officials throughout the flooded areas. "We won't know until the end of the week at the earliest."

With extensive damage in King, Lewis, Pacific, Mason, Kitsap, Thurston, Grays Harbor and Wahkiakum counties, Herman said the number of homes and businesses that have been destroyed or damaged will likely be measured in thousands rather than hundreds.

In terms of dollar value, Gov. Chris Gregoire would only hint at the magnitude of the problems.

"I can't imagine it's something short of $1 billion based on what I saw," Gregoire said. "Search and rescue -- the largest in a decade. The flooding down in Lewis County is as bad and worse than it was in 1996, which is the last known and worst that anybody can think of.

"But we are a little reticent to really quantify it until we get a better handle on things."

The state Department of Transportation says Interstate 5 at Chehalis will remain closed until this weekend and perhaps longer.

The closure has interrupted traffic on the main highway corridor between Seattle and Portland. The interstate carries about 54,000 vehicles a day through the area.

Gregoire was preparing a damage estimate for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and said she had pledges of support from top officials.

She expected a presidential emergency declaration that could speed delivery of food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies.

In Grays Harbor County, as many as 25,000 remained without electricity Wednesday evening. Power was gradually returning to the county, including downtown Aberdeen, where about half the city flood pumps were working.

In Ocean Shores, about 20 people were sickened by carbon monoxide fumes from a generator being used in a grocery store. All were expected to recover, Police Chief Russ Fitts said.

More than 20 square blocks near downtown Centralia remained under water from a deluge that wreaked a wide swath of destruction through communities along the Chehalis River's flood plain all the way to the coast.

"A lot of people lost everything," said Jason McIntire, who returned to his house to try to rescue his family's cat, Jack.

Many were happy just to be alive.

Though floodwaters had begun to recede, McIntire's house was still inundated with murky brown water. Like many others, his family fled the rising waters that turned the quaint neighborhood into a cluttered reservoir overnight.

Tracy Seymour, 39, had been plowing through deep water all morning with his jacked-up four-wheel-drive pickup to help victims recover some of their belongings.

"Nobody has toothbrushes, clothes or anything else," he said.

Tyler Stanford, 30, stood alongside the water's edge staring in disbelief at his curbside mailbox poking out of the mess like a submarine's periscope.

He said he'd been in shock from the moment his neighbor woke him up at 2 a.m. Tuesday.

"I went out and just stood there, probably a good 30 seconds, and just looked at it. Then I woke the family, looked around and prayed that I had flood insurance," he said still gazing at the house he bought seven months ago. "I don't."

Stanford said he had left with nothing but his family and the clothes he was wearing.

"I don't have anything."

Wearing chest-high waders to inspect the damage, Mark Sutherland, 53, said this year's flood was much worse than the flood that tore through Southwest Washington in 1996.

"That year we had three inches of water in the house. This year we got almost three feet," he said.

Sutherland has been slowly remodeling and repairing his home since the record floods of 1996.

"I just got done three months ago," he said.

This time? "We don't know."

Across town in Centralia, along the shores of Plummer Lake near Interstate 5, Marc Conrad was mopping up in the downstairs rec room where he said he almost drowned when a wall of water poured through the doors.

Conrad said he'd gone down into the basement to move his stereo to higher ground when the dike between his house and the lake breached.

"It exploded," he said "That water just came rushing in. It was like Niagara Falls."

The water smashed against the house and while two family friends tried to rescue a dog trapped in another room, a door broke open and Conrad was swept into the room where furniture, an upright piano and firewood swirled six feet off the floor.

At that moment 23-year-old Joby Voetberg dove into the room and pulled Conrad to the surface, then pushed him toward the door.

"At the moment he pulled me out, I thought I was dying," Conrad said. "He saved my life."

Then Mark McHugh, 18, reached in from the doorway and pulled Conrad to safety.

Long-haul trucker Carson Harding, 43, said he'd seen the destruction from Hurricane Katrina firsthand but it wasn't until his home was flooded that he really understood what people in the Gulf states had gone through.

"It's the most horrifying thing I've been through in my life," he said.

As for Jack, the stranded cat: "He made it," McIntire said. "He was in the closet and real happy to see us."