STORMS CONTINUE IN NORTHWEST; MELTING SNOW, RAIN CAUSE FLOODS.Byline: Carey Goldberg The New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times How Carol J. Carsner in Monte Rio, Calif., spent New Year's morning lugging her washer and dryer above the muddy grasp of the Russian River. How Eldon Mains, a florist in Tualatin, Ore., twisted and turned New Year's Eve over possible water damage to his flower shop. And how Kenny Ellsbree, for the first time in his 73 years, did not dare venture out of his Seattle home for six whole days for fear of snow, ice, rain, wind and mud. These are the future memories of this winter's holiday season in the Pacific Northwest, where a full week of wild weather has brought such persistent troubles that the biblical episode they evoke has moved beyond Noah to the Ten Plagues. ``We finally got our natural disaster, as if it were coming to us,'' said Wayne Rawley, 26, a coffee server in downtown Seattle Downtown is the central business district of Seattle, Washington. It is fairly compact compared to other city centers on the West Coast because of its geographical situation: hemmed in on the north and east by hills, on the west by Elliott Bay, and on the south by reclaimed land whose parents were about to move in with him because they had been flooded out of their house. ``The whole Midwest flooded, there were earthquakes in California and people froze to their floors in New York, and we just sat back and watched it - until now.'' The week of storms has claimed at least 11 lives in Oregon and Washington. Weather worries shifted Wednesday to flooding and mud slides as heavy rains in much of the region continued and warm temperatures - Seattle hit a record high for the day of 54 degrees and Walla Walla Walla Walla (wŏl`ə wŏl`ə), city (1990 pop. 26,478), seat of Walla Walla co., SE Wash., at the junction of the Walla Walla River and Mill Creek, near the Oregon line; inc. 1862. a balmy 77 - sped up the melting of the snow in the mountains. Flood warnings remained in effect for 17 Washington rivers. In the deluged city of Seattle, giant sinkholes suddenly yawned in several roads and mudslides continued to threaten a street of fine houses in the affluent Magnolia district, giving it a decided resemblance to the slides of Malibu. More than 90,000 households were without power after overnight gales knocked out lines. In Oregon, which is seeing its wettest winter on record, gusts measured at more than 100 miles an hour lashed the top of Humbug Mountain Humbug Mountain lies on the coast of Oregon, situated about 6 miles (10 km) south of Port Orford, with U.S. Route 101 passing by its northern base. The mountain rises from the Pacific Ocean's sea shore to an elevation of 1,670 ft (509 m). and concern mounted over whether buildings in Portland and Salem would suffer flood damage. A bit farther south, Northern California Northern California, sometimes referred to as NorCal, is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. The region contains the San Francisco Bay Area, the state capital, Sacramento; as well as the substantial natural beauty of the redwood forests, the northern was bearing the brunt of the storm front Wednesday, with flood warnings issued for every river north of San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden and winds gusting to 90 miles an hour in the Sierra Nevada Sierra Nevada, mountain range, Spain Sierra Nevada (syā`rä nāvä`thä), chief mountain range of S Spain, in Granada prov., running from east to west for c.60 mi (100 km), parallel to the Mediterranean Sea. . Mudslides closed the 101 Highway above Eureka, and the town of Napa in wine country declared a state of emergency because of flooding. In Sebastopol near the Russian River, 61 people spent New Year's Eve in a Red Cross refugee center set up at the Veterans Memorial Hall - among them Illythia Lichau, mother of a 3-year-old girl and a 2-month-old baby, who had been flooded out of their trailer. ``This was not the way I planned to spend New Year's Eve,'' she said. ``I wasn't planning on doing much, but definitely not this.'' Meteorologists Atmospheric scientists
``This storm is as impressive as anything any of us have seen,'' said Daniel W. Klinger of the National Weather Service. ``Its most impressive feature is how far across the Pacific it stretches.'' CAPTION(S): Photo PHOTO A hardy jogger in Shoreline, Wash., finds his way blocked by a 30-foot by 100-foot sinkhole sinkhole or sink or doline Depression formed as underlying limestone bedrock is dissolved by groundwater. Sinkholes vary greatly in area and depth and may be very large. Wednesday. Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. |
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