Reflecting On The Rivers

That shape our character

I live in an interesting place. A place of mountains, and rivers, and sea. West of the towering Cascade Mountain Range. A land called Cascadia by many. The borders of Cascadia were never formed by war or treaty, but rather through human imagination, each of us gets to decide for ourselves where it begins and where it ends.

For me, that is west. West of the Cascades. The land where it is never too hot, never too cold, but where it is most often damp. Where rain perpetually falls in abundance, and all of nature is truly green. The land of major cities, Seattle, Vancouver B.C., Portland Oregon. Strikingly fertile agricultural lands, bordered by primeval forests. These forests home to abundant wildlife, and trees of such size as to stretch the imagination. Urban oases, teaming with people and commerce, hubs of technological innovation, standing directly next to rural towns, farms, and forests.

To me, this land is Cascadia. Although I do sometimes favor the term used so long ago by John Quincy Adams, ‘The Empire Of Astoria.’¹ Every empire needs an emperor, I figure myself perfectly suited to the post. Why not? It worked well for Norton the First down in San Francisco!

Casting the nonsense of empire aside, these past days have been a time of intense flooding here west of the Cascades. A frequent occurrence, and something that shapes all of us who were born and lived here. Particularly those of us who have lived on the banks of our mighty rivers.

Photo Courtesy: Cascadia Dan, Wikimedia Commons, CC 3.0

As a child, I grew up on one of these mighty rivers. The Snohomish. We didn’t actually live on the river, but both sets of my grandparents did. They never flooded in the same year, because they lived on opposite sides of that river. Both of my grandfathers built and helped build dikes, when one side overtopped it was blamed on the other side building more than agreed. Dike building was part competition, part war. Needless to say the side of the river with the larger and more prosperous farms flooded less often but perhaps more severely when its higher dikes broke.

As a really young kid, I thought the floods were great adventures, as did my brother and my cousins. We’d boat to my grandparent’s house in little motorized rowboats, through the flooded fields, over the fences. From their raised house to high ground was perhaps a mile, perhaps a little more.

We’d stay in their house without electricity. For us boys it was like camping. For our grandfather and fathers it was work to move animal feed through the floodwaters to the raised areas the animals were kept when the floods inundated everything else. And it was work to ensure that all of the equipment made it to higher ground.

In the mid 1970’s, my grandparents lost their house. The floodwaters didn’t enter it, indeed had never entered it, but those waters began swirling around a telephone pole out near the road. As they swirled, they dug a hole. Eventually that hole grew to such immense size that it undermined the home’s foundation, and the house tipped over into it.

That was just prior to Christmas. The gifts were all under the tree in the living room. When the house fell into the hole, the living room was the leading edge, and everything in it went out the huge picture window. The gifts were of course replaced before the holiday, but we found the originals, for months, outside, buried in mud. The very mud, and silt, that makes the farmland here so fertile.

As the waters receded, the house remained intact. At about a forty-five degree angle, with its front in the hole. I remember walking through that ruin. The rooms in the back of the house looked normal, had it not been for the terrible lean. It was decided that much in the house could be saved, as water had never been in any part not in the hole, so huge steel cables were run from the house to nearby trees so that it wouldn’t fall further. The scars from those cables remain in those trees today, a permanent reminder of when they held the weight of an entire home.

My grandparents rebuilt, higher the second time.

I remember in the early 1990’s, I was a young man now, a young man with a big new truck. The floodwaters were coming. I loaded the truck up with some supplies, and drove through a little bit of water to deliver them to my grandparents. We’d always driven through flood waters, as long as they weren’t too deep. It was felt, in our family anyway, that if they reached the doors of a truck, the water was too deep, but anything less and one was good to go.

I was there for a very short time, but the water rose extremely quickly. It got deep. But, not too deep. Not to the doors of the truck yet. I headed for home. I didn’t make it. I almost made it, but when the truck died I was in the middle of a huge lake, with the water rising fast.

My grandfather had been watching to make sure that all would be OK. He saw the truck stop and came to the rescue on his largest tractor. We hooked truck to tractor, and he pulled the truck to higher ground. That’s when we learned that manufacturers had moved engine air intakes on trucks from the top of the engine to behind the bumper.

Floods weren’t an adventure anymore, I’d become an adult.

Years later, as I entered middle age, I bought a home in the mountains, on the Skykomish River.

It was interestingly located in that the river headed straight towards it, then made a ninety degree turn as it hit the massive granite bedrock that the house was built upon. It was also interesting, because it was actually two houses. One right next to the other. My own little compound.

It was high banked, so seemed safe from the river raging through the turn below.

One day a flood came, and with it, massive logs. Huge downed trees, headed straight for my house. These logs were coming at speed, shattering as they struck the bedrock where the river made its turn.

Standing on that very point was the secondary house. The guest house, in which we didn’t live, but where I had my office. The front was mostly glass, and I spent a long time standing behind that glass, watching the awesome destructive power of the river.

I could also see the few homes upriver from mine. None of which were on a high bank, all of which were going, quite deeply, underwater. My houses were the first along the road that were and would remain dry.

As I watched, the water kept growing deeper and deeper.

Eventually, the water got so deep that one of these massive evergreen trees didn’t shatter when it collided with the bedrock. It didn’t turn with the river. Instead it pushed up onto the narrow strip of lawn between the house and the steep river bank, striking, and breaking, the house’s foundation. Part of the tree was now under the house, doing damage. On impact, the wooden front deck detached from the house, and I evacuated to our home next door.

The flood began in daylight hours, but lasted through the night. I remember standing at the back of our guesthouse, placing my hand on it, asking it to fight to remain. I spent a very long and nerve-wracking night in our home, watching the river. Not alone, for as it was the first house on the road above water, a number of our neighbors took refuge with us.

Eventually the flood waters receded. Our guest house remained. Standing, but with a huge hole in the foundation. In time, it was repaired and restored. Some of our neighbors were not so lucky.

That is when I learned that flood insurance doesn’t cover anything that happens under the first floor.

Today I live in the Chehalis River basin. My little city is home to three waterways that are quite prone to flooding. The Chehalis River, the Skookumchuck River, and China Creek, which certainly doesn’t resemble a creek when the floodwaters are spilling well beyond its banks.

Most of the city, including its downtown core floods. Indeed some years ago the waters got so deep that they covered the elevated freeway that runs through our valley.

My house is old, historic, and has been in my wife’s family for a long time. From that, I know that we are lucky. Unlike most of the city, the spot in which it sits has never flooded. It remains dry.

Dry, but becomes an island. The little city around it, flooded in all directions.

Reflecting back on my life, I see that the rivers here in Cascadia are never entirely out of my thoughts. Neither the beauty and abundance they provide the vast majority of the time, nor the destruction and terror they deliver when they explode beyond their banks.

I have an interesting personal artifact in storage here in my home. For a season of my life, I was Mayor of the city I then called home. That city was along the banks of the Snohomish River, it’s namesake. In storage I have a big ugly coat with the city’s logo, my name, and title on it. The city provided it to me when I first assumed my official duties. It was explained to me at that time that it was provided to me so that I could be easily recognized as the person in authority in the event that our city suffered a major flood.

Luckily no such flood occured in the city while I was in office.

These experiences with our rivers, and others, undoubtedly helped forge me into the man I am today. I believe that not uncommon with those who live along Cascadia’s rivers, and that those shared experiences certainly contribute to the culture that has evolved within this little wet corner of our world.

It is widely believed that flooding here in Cascadia is now more frequent, and more severe than it was in the past.

Many seem to hold that this is caused by changes to our climate.

Perhaps, but my eyes tell me of another cause. A much more obvious cause.

Building, and greed.

In a way this goes back to my grandfathers. Their work to drown each other when I was a kid.

When the flood waters come, they must go somewhere.

My grandfathers both worked, along with their neighbors, to build dikes. Dikes higher and stronger on their respective sides of the river than the other side had. To keep their side dry while the other side was inundated. Undoubtedly this process played out all through the western side of the Cascade Mountain Range.

Today I think that is less of a problem. Cooler heads have prevailed. Overarching drainage and flood control plans for river systems have been created. Plans that all can agree to.

But, the fundamental problem illustrated by this remains. The flood waters must go somewhere, and we as a society seem intent upon filling our floodplains.

A new car dealership is built, on land filled so that it won’t flood. A new grocery store and fast food restaurant are built, on land raised so that they won’t flood. A new neighborhood is developed, on filled land so that it won’t flood. Those who develop these things don’t care, they likely live elsewhere, and profit is their only true motive. The politicians who approve these projects lie when questions are raised, claiming that they won’t impact flooding elsewhere, all they can see are votes, campaign donations, and an increased tax base.

Of course, the flood waters must go somewhere. Water displaced from one property because that property was filled simply gets deeper down the road. The filled property drowns its neighboring property.

Why do we perceive deeper and more severe floods? Because there are less places for the flood water to go. It gets deeper for everyone else when the former floodplain is now high and dry.

The Empire of Astoria, the wet side of the Cascade Range is truly a place of breathtaking beauty. Equally it is a place that clearly shows the pure and brutal force of nature when its rivers rage. We may in our hubris believe that human works can tame those rivers, but every few years we get a reminder of just how false those hopes truly are.

1. https://www.primarysourcecoop.org/publications/jqa/document/jqadiaries-v30-1818-05-p342--entry15