Crews race to shore up levees along Kent Valley
KENT, Wash. -- Not wanting to see a repeat of the flooding disaster in New Orleans, work crews are busy shoring up the levees through the Kent Valley.
The emergency repair work is being done in a hurry. The crews are out here working 18 hours a day, 6 days a week.
They're tearing down the old levees and putting in new stronger ones. The good news, is they're ahead of schedule.
The timetable is important because they have to be done by mid-September to get ahead of the autumn rain and to get done before the spawning fish start coming up river.
Crews with the Army Corps of Engineers, King County and the cities along the Green River are combining their efforts to get federal matching dollars to help pay for the $8 million project.
The problems showed up following the storms of 2006 when cracks appeared on the levees through the Kent Valley. They knew something had to be done.
"We're here today because we don't want to have King County repeat the natural disasters that have happened in the Mississippi River, that have happened in New Orleans and other places across the country," said King County councilmember Reagan Dunn. "We want to learn from the lessons those places have taught us."
We saw what happened when the Chehalis River broke through a levee shutting down I-5 for days.
They've seen flooding in these parts before. The levees were put in to protect the agricultural land and now also to protect the businesses, especially the distribution centers. The Kent Valley is the largest warehouse district in the state.
Many items that come to your home come through here first.
"As a core for the distribution for the whole state of Washington and up and down the coast, things would be absolutely not just stopped, but out of business for months, potentially years," said Kent Mayor Suzette Cooke.
And so down goes the old the levee and in comes the new. They're not only making the levees stronger with loads of rock, they're making the river wider to hold more water at lower levels.
The emergency repair work is being done in a hurry. The crews are out here working 18 hours a day, 6 days a week.
They're tearing down the old levees and putting in new stronger ones. The good news, is they're ahead of schedule.
The timetable is important because they have to be done by mid-September to get ahead of the autumn rain and to get done before the spawning fish start coming up river.
Crews with the Army Corps of Engineers, King County and the cities along the Green River are combining their efforts to get federal matching dollars to help pay for the $8 million project.
The problems showed up following the storms of 2006 when cracks appeared on the levees through the Kent Valley. They knew something had to be done.
"We're here today because we don't want to have King County repeat the natural disasters that have happened in the Mississippi River, that have happened in New Orleans and other places across the country," said King County councilmember Reagan Dunn. "We want to learn from the lessons those places have taught us."
We saw what happened when the Chehalis River broke through a levee shutting down I-5 for days.
They've seen flooding in these parts before. The levees were put in to protect the agricultural land and now also to protect the businesses, especially the distribution centers. The Kent Valley is the largest warehouse district in the state.
Many items that come to your home come through here first.
"As a core for the distribution for the whole state of Washington and up and down the coast, things would be absolutely not just stopped, but out of business for months, potentially years," said Kent Mayor Suzette Cooke.
And so down goes the old the levee and in comes the new. They're not only making the levees stronger with loads of rock, they're making the river wider to hold more water at lower levels.