From flooding in Grays Harbor to a landslide in Gig Harbor, a strong system of wind and rain left its mark in Washington Wednesday night into Thursday.
A 50 mile-per-hour gust was recorded at the Tacoma Narrows Bridge Thursday morning, one of the strongest tracked in Western Washington.
“There was significant concern with some of the forecasted wind,” said Mark Schumacher. “The rainfall was also fairly significant, ranging from one to two inches county wide.”
Schumacher, the maintenance and operations division manager Pierce County planning and public works, says crews were on call at midnight ready to respond to any of those issues.
One of the biggest issues was a landslide that cut off around a dozen homes near Sunrise Beach Park. The slide blocked all of the road, taking about 40 yards of earth off the hillside.
“This area in particular, a little bit up hill from where the slide happened has a chronic slope instability,” Schumacher said.
He says anytime more than an inch and a half of rain falls in 24 hours, his crews check the known spots for landslides.
Up to an inch and a half of rain is expected by the end of the weekend, falling on already saturated ground.
Schumacher says the crews will be ready. “They’re ready to dispatch based on a variety of different scenarios from snow, rain, wind, all those different scenarios.”
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