Flood History Issues Page

Date	Title	Summary
Flood History Issues Page
2/16/2009	Historic Flood Flows of the Skagit River	This document list the flood events and the recorded flows. I first put this together in 1991 when I authored Skagit River Valley The Disaster Waiting To Happen. Most of the information came from the 1979 Corps of Engineers GDM used for the 1979 Levee Improvement project proposal. I have updated the document each time we had another flood event. It is sort of a running record of flood events on the Skagit River.
5/15/2005	Historical Floods Of The Skagit River (1892 through 1951)	This is perhaps the most comprehensive collection of historical information on individual flood events of the Skagit River ever assembled. 98% of this document comes from direct quotes obtained from local newspapers.
12/3/2005	Skagit River History	This paper is an attempt to document some of the history of the Skagit River according to mostly government documents obtained from the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers. On occasion it will also contain information obtained from local historical newspaper articles. It is a factual issue oriented paper addressing the log jams, boat traffic, commerce, logging, agriculture, dam building, flood events of the “early days” and much more.
5/3/2011	Before-After Flooding in the Skagit River Basin	A series of photographs showing how floods impact the Skagit River Basin. Note how development has crept into the Skagit River floodplain after each flood.

3/1976	Skagit River Flooding: An Overview by Skagit County Rural Development Committee	Given what the committee had to work with in 1976 this was a pretty good attempt at documenting the flood issue in Skagit County. However, given what we know now it would not stand historical challenges. Such as: they rely heavily on the Steward Report. They did not know that Stewarts Report was unfinished, or that Mr. Stewart was dead at the time the report was published, nor the fact that Mr. Bodhaine had never been to Skagit County. Given the fact that the entire document was printed in the SVH in weekly installments one has to wonder why no one paid any attention to what the document had to say with respect to development in the floodplain that now burdens the taxpayer with multi-millions to protect that same development. The irony is that if the dike districts and the cities and towns get their way they will be promoting even more development that in the long run will cost the taxpayers even more money.
8/11/2002	History of Flood Control Projects Studied	Document lists the flood control studies and the main theme looked at in each study.
5/1/2005	History of Countywide Flood Control Districts (see also County Documents)	Using the Historical Newspaper Article Index I pulled out just the articles that dealt with the historical formation of countywide flood control zone districts.
5/15/2005	Historical Floods Of The Skagit River (1892 through 1951)	This is perhaps the most comprehensive collection of historical information on individual flood events of the Skagit River ever assembled. 98% of this document comes from direct quotes obtained from local newspapers.
6/12/2005	Historical Rainfall & Its Impact on Floods (1896-1969)	The purpose of this document is to look at historical articles and try and determine how much rain it takes to create a flood on the Skagit River. The best answer to the question of how much rain it takes is “It depends.”
6/23/2008	Skagit River Reports (Past studies, reports, documents)	This document identifies the examinations, reports, studies, GDM, and other documents written about the Skagit River and was updated with 34 new reports spanning between 4/9/2003 and 2/28/2008. Most of these documents I have copies of and am willing to make available upon request. The original list of Jan. 24 1999 was compiled with Corps of Engineers assistance.
8/10/2009	El Nino, La Nina & Normal Flood Years -- 1900-2004	Document compares El Nino to La Nina and our normal flood years. The document shows us that almost all of our major flood events happened in so-called normal years.
4/15/2011	Flooding in Western Washington: The Connection to Atmospheric Rivers	“This study utilizes multiple decades of daily streamflow data gathered in four major watersheds in western Washington to determine the meteorological conditions most likely to cause flooding in those watersheds. ... The flooding on the four watersheds occurred during the landfall of ARs [Atmospheric Rivers] within the warm sectors of extratropical cyclones that were accompanied by warm advection, lower-tropospheric temperatures 4-6°C above normal, strong low-level water vapor fluxes from over the Pacific, and low-level moist-neutral stability. The enhanced onshore vapor fluxes and weak static stability provided a favorable environment for orographic precipitation enhancement across the region’s steep terrain. More generally, all peak daily flows that exceeded a 5-year return period on non-consecutive days in each of the four basins of interest between WY1980-2009 were associated with landfalling ARs.” One of those basins of interest was the Sauk River.