By midmorning, flood watches had been raised to warnings on the Skokomish, Nooksack, Elwha, Skagit and Stillaguamish rivers, said hydrologist Brent Bower at the National Weather Service in Seattle.

No injuries and little property damage beyond road washouts were reported from the current round of wet weather.

The Skokomish was expected to reach flood stage before noon at the U.S. 101 highway bridge near Potlatch - again closing nearby State Route 106, which had been closed at least twice since Friday.

The river was expected "to go almost as high as it was last week," Bower said.

The U.S. 101 was also closed near Lilliwaup due to a mudslide.

Monday's rains weren't as heavy as last week's up north, but rivers are high and the ground is saturated, so flooding will occur quickly, he said.

"The little dips and other low spots that can fill up are already full," Bower said.

The rains were much heavier in the Central Puget Sound this time, with Seattle getting over 2 1/4 inches of rain. Nearly 5 inches had fallen in Bremerton and along the Kitsap Peninsula and Mason County.

The rain was expected to last into Tuesday afternoon or evening, he said.

In neighboring British Columbia, weekend floods left two people dead and two missing. Eight-hundred people were evacuated from homes and food was being flown into isolated Pemberton following a major bridge washout.

Two roads remained closed in Washington state Monday because of flood damage and slides from last week's storm. On State Route 20, the North Cascades Highway, slides deposited "rocks as big as Volkswagens" and debris 10 to 15 feet deep, said state Transportation Department spokeswoman Jamie Holter. Washington 112, the only paved road to the Makah Indian Reservation at the tip of the Olympic Peninsula, was severed by a sinkhole 40 feet deep and 150 feet long.

The slides on SR 20 forced the earliest closure of that road ever. It shuts down for the winter every year.

The damage on SR 112 is "just east of the reservation line," said DOT's Monty Mills in Port Angeles. Repairs were expected to cost $90,000 to $100,000. "If it had been just a little bit down the road, repair would have been up to the Makah road department."

A local contractor, Bruch and Bruch of Port Angeles, was on site Monday.

"We've got a full crew out there - probably as many as 10 trucks," said Jesse Bruch, who estimated repairs would take three days, with the road reopening Thursday.

"That's just an estimate," Mills cautions. "It's raining sideways out there right now."

The road to Neah Bay, which winds along bluffs overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca, is vulnerable to slides and washouts.

"It's been starting early this year," Mills said. "That might be it for winter or it might be the whole winter like that. You never know."

Arrangements were made Sunday for an emergency detour over a Crown Pacific logging road that takes about 45 minutes to traverse, with traffic limited to one way at a time, said Karl Gilje, the tribe's public works director.

"We basically want it to be traffic that absolutely has to go, be it for food delivery, gas, mail and any other deliveries to other commercial establishment we may have," Gilje said.

The tribe also will use boats to bring supplies to the reservation from the Sekiu marina as needed, he added.

At Washburn's General Merchandise, the only market serving about 2,400 reservation residents, bread was sold out Sunday and cashier Chris Chamblin said other necessities were selling fast.

By Monday, "the milk's all gone," Vicky Waddell, bookkeeper at the Makah Museum and Cultural Center. And if the run on gasoline continues at the town's only station, that could run out too.

"People are gassing up a lot," she said. "Like they're going to go somewhere. Where are they going to go?"

Neah Bay School was closed because many of the teachers live off the reservation, she said - giving kids time to catch up on housework and homework.

"I'm not worried," Waddell said of the increased isolation at her remote community. "This town helps out. ... We'll be fine."

On SR 20, state transportation crews were trying to clear culverts and limit damage, Holter said.

"We have large sections of roadway that have washed out. We have guardrails hanging in the air," Holter said. And while the road is usually closed through mid-April, repairs must be made immediately. "If we leave it alone, it will continue to erode the roadway and be much more expensive" to fix.

There was a small silver lining to the clouds. No longer are Seattle city water officials concerned about low reservoir levels following an unusually dry summer.

The city's Tolt River reservoir fell to at its lowest level in 40 years but as of Sunday was back to about 70 percent of normal capacity and "it should be all uphill from here," said George Schneider, the city's water supply manager.

The city's other water supply, Chester Morse Reservoir in the Cedar River watershed, was back to normal, he added.

For More Information:

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