ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 9, 1996 TAG: 9602090082
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: PORTLAND, ORE.
SOURCE: Associated Press
A mountainside moaned, then gave way in a rush of mud. Highways vanished beneath stinking, caramel-colored floodwaters swirling with uprooted trees and raw sewage. One girl was dead, a woman was missing, and thousands of Oregonians were driven from their homes.
And the rain kept falling. As the state's worst flooding in more than three decades threatened to swamp downtown Portland, sandbags and concrete highway dividers formed a thin defense Thursday against the wide Willamette River.
``Water's going everywhere,'' said Trase Myers, as he and others hurried to stack 40-pound sandbags against a building downtown. ``I can't believe the destruction the water has caused.''
In the nation's latest extreme weather in a winter of extremes, hundreds of roads - including both of Oregon's cross-state freeways, Interstates 5 and 84 - were closed by high water or mudslides. Amtrak trains were halted. Gov. John Kitzhaber declared 14 counties disaster areas.
Amid the deluge, there were water shortages. Muddy floodwaters contaminated drinking-water supplies throughout the valley. Portland and Salem officials urged people to conserve water. Smaller towns shut down their water plants completely and told residents to buy bottled water.
The flooding is the result of a series of storms that marched in from the Pacific beginning two weeks ago. The first were cold, piling up snow in the mountains that form a scenic backdrop to Portland - the Cascades to the east, the rolling Coast Range to the west.
On Monday, a warmer storm stalled over the state, and the snow started melting, adding to the record rains - more than 5 inches a day in some areas.
Sparkling mountain streams, narrow enough to jump across two weeks ago, turned monstrous, tearing through the forest, ripping small bridges apart.
As the swollen streams converged in the Willamette River valley, evergreen trees were ripped out by their roots, bobbing and lunging downstream like huge battering rams.
An estimated 1,500 people were forced from their homes in Eugene, and 12,000 in the Salem area, where a parade of U-Hauls, horse trailers and pickup trucks streamed through the rain.
Bill and Connie Mellin grabbed a few valuables from their home in Keizer, near Salem, and headed for higher ground.
``We've stacked our furniture up on books that we don't like,'' Bill Mellin said. ``We're going to grab some photos, kids' toys and clothes and get out of here.''
The gathering waters barreled toward Portland, Oregon's biggest city, which sits astride the Willamette near its confluence with the Columbia River.
On the Columbia River east of Portland, a tugboat rescued Harold Jank, 70, from a house that was breaking apart late Wednesday as it raced down the waterway. The tugboat couldn't rescue Jank's wife, Jacqueline, 62, and she was missing.
A 9-year-old girl drowned in a culvert Wednesday when she went out to get the mail near the small Willamette Valley town of Scio.
In Portland, the Willamette was expected to breach the city's seawall Thursday night and crest this morning at 30 feet, 1.2 feet above the seawall's lowest point.
That would equal the level of Portland's last big flood, at Christmas 1964, which killed 47 people and left 17,000 people homeless throughout the Northwest.
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Sam Konnie (left) leaves with his daughter, Pattiby CNBKonnie (center), his partner, Julie Haney, and their dog from their
flooded home near Junction City, Ore. color. KEYWORDS: FATALITY