Flooding, What a Mess!

We had 3 storm fronts come through this past weekend. We had our first snow of the year, December 1st (normally the snow stays up in the mountains), but at least once a year, it decides to come down into the lowlands and wreck havoc for a day or two. December 2nd & 3rd it snowed early in the morning on the 2nd & by noon it downpoured the rest of the day, into the night and as well on the 3rd all day and WHAT A MESS!!

I've attached some photos so you can see the after math. (I'm not sure if they've ever said how many inches we did receive.) My neighborhood was lucky we didn't see any flash flooding but a lot of other neighborhoods weren't so lucky. One of the towns, nearby, where we do a lot of our shopping and dining, they had over 14 roads closed at one time and the main highway to get into that town, part of road had washed away. I saw areas flooded that I had no idea that water could even reach. Most of the photos below are from the area of Chehalis, Washington, where most of the damage was done.

The photos with the semi trucks sitting on the overpass are stuck there until the river goes back down, since both ends of Interstate 5 in that area are covered with over 10 feet of water (we just got news today-Thursday- that they hope the have that part of Interstate 5 opened back up by tonite). They say the trucking industry is losing over $4 million dollars a day since they cannot move their loads up and down Interstate 5. The problem is, there are not really any other roads to get to and from Portland to Seattle except by going 400 miles out of the way and heading over to eastern Washington and then coming back over to the western side. The second to last photo is of the town that I mentioned above that had over 14 roads closed. I have lived in this area for over 10 years and had no idea that little creek was even there. Apparently that day, it decided it wanted to be noticed. (We were lucky in that there weren't many fatalities).