Tukwila, Washington– Crews used sandbags to shore up an earthen dam south of Seattle on Monday after a small portion of it collapsed after a week of heavy rain, triggering an evacuation order covering parts of three suburbs, officials said.
An evacuation order from King County in Washington state has been sent to about 1,100 homes and businesses east of the Green River in parts of Kent, Renton and Tukwila, said Brendan McCloskey, the county’s director of emergency management. The National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning that initially covered nearly 47,000 people, but was reduced within a few hours to an area covering 7,000 people.
No one was injured, McCloskey said.
Authorities in Renton and Tukwila said Monday afternoon that flooding was limited to small industrial areas and no residents had been evacuated.
The dam breach came days after Heavy rains and floods It flooded communities, forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people and prompted dozens of rescue operations across western Washington state.
The failure occurred at Desimone Dam next to the Green River, in an area where officials were concerned about a possible breach, John Taylor, director of the King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks, said at a news conference Monday.
As water levels rose last week, workers began installing a “leak blanket” — a permeable material that can remove water from a cut slope — in an effort to reduce the risk of flooding, and crews were present Monday when the breach occurred.
“We were there because we monitor these dams closely,” Taylor said. “It’s not unusual for these dams to have so much water behind them for so long. They’re becoming saturated and the effects of that are starting to show.”
Renton city spokeswoman Laura Pettit said the breach was minimal and was filled with sandbags, including large bags about 3 feet (1 meter) high and holding about a ton of sand.
She added: “What we understand is that the area is under management and the intrusion has been controlled.” “However, this does not mean that there will not be a future impact with any changing situation.”
A portion of the paved bike path along the top of the dam in Tukwila collapsed and broke as the dam was washed away beneath it.
The flash flood warning was initially issued for a fairly large area because we didn’t know specifically which areas would be flooded, said Reed Wolcott, warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service.
“We have since improved the initial alert area to a much smaller area, and we will continue to improve this alert as we learn more information about potential impacts,” he said.
The dam was severely damaged during floods in 2020. Long-term repairs were not expected to be completed until 2031, according to a blog post from the King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks.
In August 2015, the US Army Corps of Engineers began repairs to a 775-foot (235 m) section of the dam, the result of flooding in March 2014, according to the federal agency. The damage greatly affected the dam’s ability to protect an area of about 7.5 square miles (19 square kilometres). The repairs were scheduled to be completed by the end of 2015, although it was not immediately clear when the work was finished.
___
This story has been corrected to show that the three affected cities are Tukwila, Kent and Renton, not Tukwila, Kent and Auburn.
___
Rush reported from Portland, Oregon. Contributed by writer Christopher L. Keller reports for The Associated Press from Albuquerque, New Mexico.