Making higher ground

Snohomish County Public Works announced possible solutions to three of the four problem areas adversely affected by frequent flooding on Ben Howard and Mann roads during an open house on Thursday.

The nearly $2 million plan is to raise roadway sections a few feet and install culverts. The end result should be sustained access to a way in and out when 311th Avenue South is inundated.

Public works presented the project’s feasibility study finding at the Mountainview Christian Fellowship in Sultan on Jan. 19.

 Hundreds of residents live in the rural valley community south of Sultan that sits in the Skykomish River floodplain. Ben Howard and Mann roads cut west and east through the valley and parallel to the Skykomish River. 311th Avenue Southeast crosses the Skykomish and joins the junction of Ben Howard and Mann roads. It is the quickest way for those residents to access U.S. Highway 2 and get into town.

“These roads are the sole access to the local community,” according to the Mann Road Hydraulic Analysis prepared by the county surface water management department, “and the frequent closures significantly impact commuters, school bus service, maintenance of public infrastructure and utilities, and emergency services.”

Anyone living in the area would likely echo that, and probably add to the list.

Brandy Kretschmer recently moved to a home on “Devil’s Elbow,” One of the three road sections that have been selected in the plan. It is a notorious corner in the neighborhood. Her family also must account for the safety of seven alpacas and two horses. They are among the hundreds of people cut off and isolated during a severe storm.

“I am ground zero,” Kretschmer said. “No professional services are getting through four feet of water.”

The chronic issue is caused by small river floods and streams draining from hills to the south of the valley, according to the hydraulic analysis.

Kathleen Morrisson, who has lived on Mann Road for 14 years, said she and her neighbors expect about two significant floods each year. In the 2014-15 season, that number jumped to six, she said.

That year, a group of residents began to contact their county and state representatives, to let them know “we need some help here,” Morrisson said.

Surface Water Management Engineer III  Zach Brown said their efforts are the reason the county has been so responsive.

The three targeted road sections are along the edge of the floodplain.

Brown said there is a small risk of changing water flow by reshaping the roadways; nothing like the potential repercussions of raising 311th Avenue Southeast a few feet.

“It could effectively make a dam out of the road, and that’s not what we want to do,” Brown said.

People will at least have a consistent route out, and emergency vehicles a way in via Ben Howard Road, he said. 

The plan should prepare the area for a “5-year flood” event, Brown said. On average, floods affect the area for 28 hours annually, he said.

The National Flood Insurance Program has recently altered similar terminology from a 100-year flood event, to a 1 percent annual chance, said Josha Crowley, lead for FEMA consulting firm Starr II Regional Service Center, during a Dec. 12 informational meeting on the agency’s new flood risk maps. It eliminates the notion that the event will only occur every 100 years, he said.

The county is asking for $671,000 from the state in Floodplains by Design grant program assistance, Brown said. The county will know if the application has been approved by the Legislature in June when the state’s budget is finalized, he said.

 The plan is considered a lasting solution, but unknown environmental factors always have the potential to change that, Brown said.

 “Long-term is a hard thing to discuss with a very dynamic river (Skykomish) like that,” he said.