Cornwellness: Yakima River Flood of January 2009

We listened to the news and weather reports all week: "The Yakima River is expected to reach flood stage at the Kiona measuring station on Friday afternoon." The weather turned warm and the snow in the mountains began to thaw. On top of that, excessive amounts of rain began to fall. All this water had to go somewhere. On our side of the Cascades (east), much of the it came down the Yakima River.

The Yakima River runs between Richland and West Richland and the land nearby lies low and when the river hit flood stage at Kiona, it was only a matter of hours before overran its banks here.

The Yakima last flooded in 1996 under similar conditions. That flooding was signficantly higher, lasted longer and caused much more damage. Many homes in the flood area were rebuilt on higher ground (as you will notice in the pictures). Back in 1996 we were not able to get near where we were today. In fact, if we would have been under several feet of water.

Below are several pictures and videos of the flooding. For those of you familiar with the area the captions will give you a bearing. You can also follow this link to see more professional pictures in a slideshow format.

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Gauge on the north west side of the Highway 224 (Van Giesen) Yakima River Bridge. I don't have a reference point for normal. Bruce seems to think that 72, 73 and 74 mean 472, 473, 474 feet elevation above sea level.