Over this past weekend, crews finished the last sandbag wall needed to replace our current capacity loss in the White River.

Unlike flood preparations by our neighbors to the north, our flood threats have nothing to do with the Howard Hanson Dam or possible failures of any of our flood protections. Our flood threat is caused by too much rock, sand and woody debris in the White River. Where prior to last January, we had a capacity of more than 10,000 cubic feet per second (cfs), this capacity has been reduced to as low as 5,100 cfs. It is because of this dramatic reduction that a temporary flood wall was installed to protect homes and businesses.

Long-term mitigation, including a request to remove select debris from the river, is being worked on. These flood walls are to keep us safe until those projects are complete.

As mayor, I wish to thank everyone who has assisted in this endeavor, from our congressional, state and county leadership who pushed for funding to the individual property owners who allowed themselves to be inconvenienced in order to protect the properties of their neighbors. This has been a great example of intergovernmental cooperation to proactively deal with an emergency situation before it adversely impacts people’s lives.

There are three main areas where flood protection has been installed. The most visible is the HESCO wall that bisects Pacific Park and continues south along the river to the County Line. This project was funded through the Army Corps of Engineers and installed by King County. Following the flood season, sections of this will be removed to allow better access to the park areas and reinstalled next fall.

At the King/Pierce County line south of White River Estates, a sandbag wall was installed to prevent water from backing up into homes from the wetland areas to the south. This wall, averaging 2-3 feet and constructed with more than 15,000 sandbags, was a cooperative effort among the City of Pacific, Pierce and King County, ACE and local business. This wall was constructed over three days by volunteers from the City, White River Lions, Scouts and local citizens. I wish to thank the many property owners who allowed access across their yards to move or install sandbags and to those property owners who allowed the wall to be built across their yards.

The final section to be completed is from the King/Pierce County line south. Over the past two weeks, workers from Pierce County filled thousands of sandbags and loaded them onto pallets. Over this past week, these pallets were moved into the wetland area east of Butte Avenue. This past weekend, Pierce County workers used those sandbags to build a 500-foot-long sandbag wall that reaches four feet in the middle. Additional sandbags were used to close off additional low areas and should now keep flood waters out of residential and commercial properties along Butte Avenue.

Now, we have had citizens call up and ask for pallets of sandbags to be delivered to their homes just in case. Most of these requests have come from homeowners who are at no risk of flooding or are already protected by the installed flood walls. Although we would like to be able to fill each of these requests, it would not be a reasonable use of our efforts.

We have a certain number of sandbags, already loaded onto pallets that can be delivered to critical or threatened areas if needed. If we were to honor those request for homes that are not needed, we would quickly run out. With a value of $4-5 per bag (the cost of the bag, the sand and the time to fill it and deliver it) this would also not be a prudent use of tax dollars that may be needed elsewhere.

Proactive flood preparations should prevent any reoccurrence of any home or business from being impacted. With a reserve of sandbags ready to go, we should be able to quickly respond to any additional areas of flooding.

Pacific Mayor Richard Hildreth can be reached at 253-929-1100 or pacificmayor@aol.com.