Whatcom flooding caused $4 million in damage

BELLINGHAM — Damage from a series of storms that inundated Whatcom County with floodwaters in late January and early February has totaled more than $4 million, officials said Friday.

State emergency-management officials are seeking a federal disaster declaration over the Super Bowl weekend flooding that affected 20 Washington counties, including Whatcom, according to an email Friday from John Gargett, deputy director of the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office Division of Emergency Management.

Portions of the Nooksack River flooded the northern communities of Everson, Nooksack and Sumas, as well as Marietta and parts of Lummi Nation in the Nooksack delta, from Jan. 31-Feb. 2.

A series of tropical storms in late January dumped several inches of rain in the lowlands of Western Washington and even more rain in the North Cascades, including the Mount Baker wilderness.

That sent a surge of water downstream into the farmlands east of Lynden and the South Fork Valley.

Some 50 homes, many of them in downtown Sumas, and six businesses suffered damage in the amount of $1.6 million, Gargett wrote.

Another $2.5 million damage was done to roads and other infrastructure, Gargett wrote.

For example, Truck Road in Deming suffered severe damage when the Nooksack washed over it, and a BNSF railroad siding was undermined in Sumas, Gargett told The Bellingham Herald.

In addition, the river levee was damaged in several places from Everson downstream.

Some 30 homes in Sumas suffered significant damage, meaning they had water above their electrical outlets.

He said many residents are in the process of rebuilding but that few residents were completed displaced.