More from the Flood

Yeah, I'm going to keep coming back to this. As well as back to the writer's strike as well. It is one of the strengths of blogging is that you can pick your subjects and stay with them as long as you choose to. Me, I'm still concerned about the effects Katrina has had on the Gulf Coast, including such locations as Biloxi, which has pretty much slid off the radar while New Orleans, hardly in a better position, gets the media attention (if not much in the way of better treatment).

Anyway, the flood from a few weeks back. While I noted that we were pretty safe up on the hill, down in the Renton Valley things were a tad bit dicier. Most of the localized flooding we got was the result of storm sewers being clogged up by debris and massive rains, but it was still pretty impressive. These filmmakers got some good shots outside of the local IKEA, where the road was overwhelmed (and the businesses were slightly higher up. (And here's a clip of Snoqualmie Falls - known best for the site of the hotel in "Twin Peaks").

Also, down in the Chehalis area, the Seattle Times is reporting that Weyerhauser, the big lumber operation, is re-examining its policies, seeing how it clearcut a bunch of hillsides that were officially too steep, but for which they got permission after a company geologist vouched that they was safe. Now that a good chunk of those hillsides have washed into downtown Centralia, they're having second thoughts about the wisdom of that move (and the geologist who gave the thumb's-up should be relocated to Phoenix by now).

And lastly, the flood did have an effect on my local commute. Part of I-405, the chunk between routes 167 and 169, was severely undercut by a sinkhole (yeah,, you heard right, a sinkhole and requires emergency repairs. Said repairs involve lane closures and are definitely screwing up the daily transportation, mainly because travel options are relatively infinite for the chunk of land between the foothills and the lake. The Times takes due notice, then goes back to campaigning for more coolness for I-520. Ah, well.

More later,


More later,