The flooding and mudslides Sunday night and Monday morning left some residents of Queets Avenue in Hoquiam without a place to live, while business owners in both Aberdeen and Hoquiam scrambled to minimize damage after water seeped into store fronts.
The scene on Queets Avenue at the foot of Beacon Hill in Hoquiam was one of complete chaos late Monday morning. A mudslide knocked at least three houses off of their foundations, with one being pushed out all the way into the middle of the street.
Lorna and Bill McFadden’s 19-year-old son was displaced from his home in the 2500 block of Queets around 6 a.m. by Hoquiam Police and the fire department. At roughly 9 a.m., he got word from his friends that a tree behind the house had fallen onto the home and it began to slip off of its foundation.
Lorna and Bill were talking with one another next to the house Monday morning.
“It’s pretty unbelievable. I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Lorna.
The house was tilted sideways with its front steps bent into pieces like toothpicks, while debris from inside cluttered the back lawn. The McFaddens’ son was told by police that he could not go into the house given the shape it was in, making it even more nerve-wracking for the family to wonder which personal items survived, and which ones didn’t.
“Everything the boys own is in there,” said Lorna.
Further up the street was a house that had been pushed into the middle of the street by the landslide, making the otherwise quiet Hoquiam neighborhood look like a scene from an apocalyptic movie. The house next door had part of its roof laying on top of a black pickup truck parked in the driveway.
Workers from Cascade Natural Gas and Grays Harbor PUD cutting utilities to the houses most severely damaged.
Alex Whitbeck, who lives on nearby Cherry Street, had his garage filled with water and at least two feet of it in his backyard. Whitbeck has lived in Hoquiam for 29 years and he said he had never seen such severe flooding in the area.
“This is definitely ugly,” he said.
Just two blocks away, on Sumner Avenue, Gary Mitchell was standing outside the NAPA Auto Parts store he owns. Mitchell came to work on Monday morning to find the inside of the storefront flooded, damaging products and computers inside. Mitchell and two other coworkers stood in NAPA’s flooded parking lot looking uncertain about how they would get back on their feet.
“It’s not good,” said Mitchell. “What you see out here is what’s inside.”
Mitchell said he estimates the damage to stock and computers could be as much as $100,000. He got sandbags early on Monday morning from the City of Hoquiam and the fire department, but that didn’t help. Mitchell hopes, however, that representatives from NAPA will come down from Seattle in the next few days to help him clean his shop.
Roads in Aberdeen were just as flooded as they were in Hoquiam. Business owners and residents trudged through puddles downtown while trying navigate the deluged streets.
The Town Mini Mart and Deli at 216 Wishkah St. started to take in water on Sunday night, said store owner Se Chung. Two freezers were not working as a result of water damage, forcing Chung to try to figure out how to keep his refrigerated food and drink items cold. He said he plans on contacting his distributors to explain his situation and try to come to a resolution.
Down the street, Gargoyle Tattoo owner Kyle Sisk was preparing to tear out the hardwood floor of his shop. Sisk said the water was a foot and a half deep when he got to work at 5:30 Monday morning. He estimates the floor will cost about $1,000 to fix.
“I got all my valuable stuff up off the ground this morning. This is better than it burning down, I guess,” he said with a laugh.
Mike Rosevear owns the building that Sisk runs his tattoo shop out of on the corner of Wishkah and H Streets downtown. He was working with his dad to vacuum water out of the carpet. Rosevear lives in Olympia and wasn’t aware Aberdeen would suffer any flooding or how bad it would be. Luckily, Rosevear said cleanup won’t be too bad because the building is concrete.
“Besides getting the carpet cleaned, we should be okay,” he said.
Higher up, the intersection of B Street and Victory Way was completely flooded in North Aberdeen.
Monika Revel acts as a caretaker for an elderly man right next to the intersection and said it hadn’t been dry since Monday morning.
“I had to park my truck up there just to come to work,” said Revel, pointing to higher ground.
The man who Revel helps during the day was supposed to get dialysis on Monday but couldn’t due to the weather. Brown water moved softly around the house Revel was working at, making invisible the lower half of the front steps. Damage was sustained in the house’s basement, but everywhere else remained dry. “I’ve lived in Aberdeen for over 30 years and this is the worst flooding I’ve seen. It’s incredible,” she said.
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