The official measure for the Stilly as of the time of this writing is 21 feet above flood stage. The photo here taken yesterday showed the water moving between 19 and 20 feet on the gauge. It's still raining here so the real crests won't come until this afternoon around four p.m. It is supposed to be getting cooler. That means instead of rain in the mountains and melting snow it will begin to snow again. That's either good news or delayed bad news - too soon to tell.Seattle is cut off from all points south and east. The Chehalis River has overflowed I-5 in parts of a 20-mile stretch. The passes are closed over the Cascades to the east for fear of avalanches and mud slides. The Interbay area between Queen Anne and Magnolia, two Seattle communities, had a largish mudslide early in the a.m. More than a 50-foot swathe was reported to have crushed a carport and four bikes. No one was killed. Hard to imagine that even being news but Seattle people take their bikes very seriously. And really, mudslides around here can kill many people and change the topography in a very disturbing and personal way.
I'm posting a column I wrote way back in 1998 to the Walk the Lines, Tell the Tales sister blog. Looking at moving water in flooding rivers is a personally disturbing experience to me. A very graphic dream about my own death in a stream many years ago kept me from several river rafting trips. But it faded over time and I entered the waters again as a fly fisherman and canoeist. At least until the experience I report in the story, titled Sweepers.
