Just over a week after the remnants of “Snowmageddon ‘08” melted away, Western Washington was hit this week by another whammy–this one in the more familiar form of rain. With rivers already swollen with the unusual snowmelt and the ground already saturated, the area hardly needed the arrival of a familiar weather pattern known as a Pineapple Express. A warm, sub-tropical, moisture-ladden front arrives via the jet stream from Hawaii and dumps unusual amounts of rain (unusual even for the Pacific Northwest) once it bumps up against the Cascade Range.

Example: 10 inches of rain fell in 24 hours over the town of Chehalis, Wash., located along I-5 in a flood plain along the Chehalis River. I’m sure as the rain started falling, local residents flashed back to 13 months ago, when similar circumstances led to levee breaks, historic flooding, lost lives and millions of dollars in property damage. Thankfully, this year the floodwaters are already starting to recede without the levee breaks and massive damage (though there will still be plenty) that occurred last year.

However, as happened last year, a section of Interstate 5 in the area was covered with up to three feet of water, leading to a shut-down of this major West Coast transportation corridor for two days. In addition, all of the major mountain passes linking western and eastern Washington over the Cascades were shut down, leaving travelers and freight haulers alike with no means of accessing the northwestern part of the state (including the populous Puget Sound region encompassing Olympia, the state capital; Seattle; Tacoma; and the international airport) on a land route (freight train service and Amtrak were also shut down). Some airlines were offering special fares for those who had to travel between Portland and Seattle and were willing to ditch their cars (but who at some point will have to retrieve those vehicles!).

As you can well imagine, this created headaches for everyone involved. Some 10,000 trucks use I-5 each day, and that affects millions of dollars of goods. Much that is transported by those semis is perishible, everything from salad greens and fruit to live chickens! It doesn’t take long for the cessation of the flow of goods to show up in grocery and discount stores . . . and eventually we all pay for the losses through increased prices for all manner of commodities.

As of Friday afternoon, trucks were once again being allowed to travel I-5, and passenger traffic will soon follow. Interstate 90 over the mountains opened at about the same time, so Western Washington is no longer a virtual island to the rest of the country. Forecasts call for light rain over the weekend and cooler temperatures (meaning the precipitation will fall as snow over the mountains and stay there, at least for a while). That means that, for now, the worst is past–at least until the next Pineapple Express!

Patty Vanikiotis, proofreader