richmond2000

up here in Vancouver Canada out in the Sumas flats they had a home on the news you could canoe through the first floor windows! (second floor for amaricans?)

jovan_gonzales

OMG, I have never seen flooding like that and we get soooo much rain/hurricanes here. That is so crazy! I hope you are ok and that everyone there is ok! Sheesh, all this crazy weather right now! It is December and it was 78 here today. I don't understand ... lol.

Anyways, keep your stuff dry!!! :D

BLAKBOX06

That's it! Im' taking the Baja to pdx...You do know that bugs float right? LOL

willlangford

Well the last 24 hours have been interesting...

Yesterday afternoon my Dad and I got past the county road block because we had to take my grandma her pills. So we know the road was clear...

then about about 2am my cell phone goes off. Thinks to self who the hell is calling me, it's the alarm people that monitor our warehouse, rear motion sensor going off. Think to sell, f--- me running....

I run downstairs, wake my father up and we both get dressed and head down the hill. Cool road is still closed, not for us. Most of the logs are off the road so that is nice, we get to where the stoplight are and see the freeway still still closed (and yes 24 hours later when I right this it is closed), we enter anyway, after all it is the closed route right? We get off the freeway to be greeted by the National Guard. He starts and we just tell him we have a security breach and hes like go for it, passing 2 more road closed signs we pass the cop that was checking out the office, we stopped and tried to chase him down with no luck. Great.. So we get there, all looks well. My Dad goes around the back meanwhile I stand at the front corner with my rifle looking for anything. I swear the people across the street were going, um note to self never try to break in there. We sweep the building, all is well. We start to head home. Nation Guard asks if everything was ok, we say yes, then he's like go back the freeway, you guys look beat, but do me a favor and go back north on the southbound side because you know that is clear, no problem. We get off on the other on ramp, National Guard again, and they are REALLY ____ed. We told them their friends said to do it, and he calmed down and said have a good night.

Theres more, about 3:30 the door bell rings, I slept through this part, our phone was freaking out and making 911 distress calls, so the cops show up to the house, we unplug the phone and tell them thanks and have a good night.

That was my night last night, but today was the interesting part.

We go out the valley and I will say for the first time ever what is out there is 10x worse than what the news is reporting. It's horrid. My pictures below really say a lot, but look at the whole album to really see how bad it is.

And for Shawn there is a picture of the pickup...

willlangford

It's way more dirty now, we had to go find a couple people that weren't answering their phone, thank god everyone I know is ok...













It was to the top of the front door on the house below.

willlangford

Also if anyone wants update please check out the dot.help unofficial Lewis County Flood Blog at;
http://flood.dothelp.net/

haobao

so...we are leaving south king county area on friday...we need to get the NOS Van down to the pdx-mas tuner show...and i really don't want to turn a 2 hour drive in the van to a 7 hour trip..trust me, that van isn't very comfortable....sooo anybody down in chehalis area got a short cut? back road? any roads? Garmin can only go so far.....

Adorian

Holy cow Will I'm really glad you guys are ok

willlangford

PM me your cell and I will help get you around, as I live in Chehalis I know every back road in the book.

Also that goes for anyone else. I will try to write up something today as well. It not that far off the beaten path so thats good..

Macster

Your best bet would to be go to Morton then hit up Hwy 12 to I-5. Adds a little over an hour instead of the 7 hour detour. WSDOT recommends the 7 hour route to deter truckers from going over hwy 7.

Best way would to take 512 to South Hill Mall exit and stay on that road (Hwy 161) all the way to Alder Lake. Turn left at the stop sign onto Hwy 7 to Elbe. When you get to Elbe. If your hungry, stop at Scaleburger across the street from Chevron.. damn good food.

The road will turn to the left but you'll want to head Right towards Morton, still on Hwy 7. Stay on this road until you come up to Hwy 12. Turn Right onto 12 and proceed to I-5 and down South.

Hope this helps.

Kent to Elbe takes about 40-45 minutes, Elbe to Morton is about 20 minutes, Morton to I-5 is about 40 minutes or so.

haobao

word..thanks for the directions macster.....
willangford, i'll send you my cell number...hopefully it opens up like they said and we'll be okay.

robbiej

Last update from TDN in Longview is that one lane north and south will be open to semi's only and that it could be a few more days for the rest of the lanes.

willlangford

It just got 10x easier to get through. I will post details in the AM.

Adorian

nice teaser will!

MoScion

I'm sure Will had more important things to tend to. Any updates Will?

willlangford

I5 is open, There is a huge slide at mile market 27 on SR6. The town is slowing coming back. I think sadly Walmart is back open this morning so the rest of the small business is town can go bankrupt again. Most of the town center businesses, across from Walmart are going to try to open next week except a select few that are open now.

The garbage on the sidewalks in Centralia is slowly going away and life is getting back to as normal as it can get.

As for in the valley, most people still don't have water as the infrastructure was basically destroyed. They are predicting 30-90 days unless the boil water for drinking bang will be lifted, we are told to conserve still, only toilets basically. They say possibly Monday we can shower. I am currently living off bottled water, and showering at my Grandmas in town.

There is a lot of red tagging going on for houses way out. A friend of mine, Ashley, her mom, and aunt I think are going to loose their houses, I haven't talked to her in a few days but her road is gone, house had 4-6 feet in it. I helped her load boxes into her car the other night to take out there to box everything up.

Another good friend saw the water was coming up, starting jacking the airplane off the ground and the helicopter, but the 88 Porsche 911 RUF was under 11 feet of water, he thinks he lost the helicopter, the airplane might be okay. He has an extensive gun collection that was saved by about 9 inches. His house was all the way up to the gutters. The guy across the street shot 1.5million worth of pure bread horses and tried to get the cows out, but it was raining, and therefore they went back to the barn. He came back last Wednesday to find a lot of them just hanging in the rafters.

Those are just a few of the stories. My thoughts and prays are with all the families that lost so much.

There is just a little bit of what is going on in this town. This weekend I might go for a drive out in the valley and get some updated pictures...Really depends if I want t use 4wd all day or not....as most of the roads are missing.

kkawana

wow

Matthews_Lewis_Racing6226

the picture with the geo under the house or something....really sux to see something like that..