Local News

Salmon Creek Flooding Again

May 25, 2017

A flood watch does remain in effect for the area through Thursday morning, and some minor flooding is currently taking place on Salmon Creek. Okanogan County Emergency Manager Maurice Goodall said this morning, that Salmon Creek is flowing over the roadway in several places. This morning officials closed Salmon Creek Road between Spring Coulee and Danker Cutoff due to the large amount of water over the roadway.

Goodall said last night the water was flowing over the bridge at Broadway in Conconully. Residents and town crews were putting out sandbags to keep the water in the channel. Goodall said there is a lot of debris in the water near Conconully and there is a bit of a log jam upstream that could break loose, so people do need to be aware that the water could rise quickly if that were to occur.

Salmon Creek is running high in the City of Okanogan as well. Goodall said when the last round of flooding occurred earlier this month, Salmon Creek was around 800 cfs, this morning it was at 760cfs, and it isn’t expected to peak until later tonight, so additional flooding could occur.

The Methow River is also running quite high, but Goodall said there doesn’t appear to be any flooding at this time.

He advised that residents in and around rivers especially, need to be aware of their surroundings, and have a plan in place in case the waters do rise. Also, be extremely cautious around the water, it is moving quite fast and very cold, and there is a lot of debris, logs, stumps, etc. It is not safe to swim in the rivers under these conditions.