(click insert for larger photo) A delivery truck lies partially submerged along Highway 12 east of Oakville where floodwaters pushed it into the ditch. Driver Jim Canady who is terrified of water escaped his truck with the help of a passerby.
Gaial Greenwood, East County News, April 1991
Oakville: - A truck driver who is terrified of water was trapped in his delivery truck as the swollen Chehalis River swept him off Highway 12 and into a ditch south (Editor's note: actually east) of Oakville Saturday morning.
"I'm still scared," Jim Canady 53, said from his Oregon home Saturday night.
The river, raging from days of heavy rains, covered roads and pastures and threatened homes and cattle Saturday in the Oakville-Rochester area.
| (click insert for larger photo) A delivery truck lies partially submerged along Highway 12 east of Oakville where floodwaters pushed it into the ditch. Driver Jim Canady who is terrified of water escaped his truck with the help of a passerby. |
It crested at 70.4 feet in Centralia at about 10 p.m. Friday, said Bill Langford, deputy director of emergency services for Grays Harbor County. That's 5.4 feet above flood stage.
Water collected in the elma area - particularly in the 12th Avenue area - on Sunday, Langford said, noting that it continued rising during the late morning and early afternoon.
:We should be seeing some stop in it now,: he said Monday morning.
Nobody was evacuated, he said, explaining that water was primarily around the houses. Langford said he hadn't heard of any water entering homes.
"Next week we'll have to ditch again," the emergency services official noted. "Another warm front is coming in."
CANADY , who has driven for Night Hawk Package Express of Clackamas, Ore., for xxx months, said he was following other trucks over the County Road bridge about 6:45 a.m. Saturday.
"I got halfway across and panicked and put too much gas and it just went in the ditch," he said. "I'm afraid of water and I've almost drowned three times and I didn't want to .... (editor's note: this part is missing).
Canady noted thankfully, his truck had no cargo in it.
Later, a "nice older man" took Canady across another flooded patch of road safely to Rochester, where someone from his company picked him up.
"You guys get too much water up there!" he concluded.
HAL LARSON, rowing by to examine the van, agrees.
The 21-year resident has 97 acres "right here" he said, taking his hand off an oar long enough to gesture toward a good-size lake that was recently his pasture.
The only way from his house to the road was by boat. He had made arrangements for a friend to pick him up, but the troopers, evidently, wouldn't let her through.
"I'm stranded," Larson said, shaking his head. "I'm just getting sick and tired of this flooding stuff. It's too frequent.
"I don't care what the Fisheries department says, we've got to start dredging these rivers. They are getting shallower all the time," he said, tying his board to the guard rail of the bridge.
"I came down here in 1969 and we've had major flooding every year and it just seems to get worse and worse. I'm ready to bail out of here."
He said he's been involved in pushing legislators to look at dredging the rivers, but wonders if that will ever happen.
The hills denuded of trees are another concern, he said, pointing up river towards a clear-cut.
"Look how they've slicked those hills. All they do is make smooth slopes for the rain to cascade off and drain down here all at once," he explained.
The section of road now underwater cost some $400,000 last fall to protect with rap rap, he added.
..... (missing text)) some lawn chairs, and with their mutt Rowdy just enjoyed the waterfront view.
"Hey," Casey said, "I just saw a tadpole float by!"
Close to the house, islands of bright daffodils showed the promise of April, but everywhere else, another story was being told.
The Wells have been at their home for just two years and have seen three big floods, Portia said. She came outside this morning to show Casey a dead slug.
Earlier the girl and her father had watched Canady's truck tip into the ditch.
"We thought he was hypnotized by the water at first," she said. "He started tipping and we thought it was going to fall over all the way."
But Portia said she and her dad were relieved to see a neighbor go to his assistance.
THE FLOODING also posed a serious dilemma for paramedics from the Aberdeen Fire Department. They were en route to St. Vincent Hospital in Portland with a patient in critical condition, and were surprised by the flooding they encountered shortly after noon, officials said.
The patient was so fragile that it was almost decided to have her helicoptered to the hospital, but hospital officials feared a helicopter couldn't be found in time, firefighters said.
No one had notified the department of the water over the roadway, and because of the seriousness of the patient's condition - a nurse and respiratory therapist were also in the ambulance - the firefighters decided that a delay by going around could be fatal, paramedic Ray Winter said.
They consulted a man from the Department of Transportation positioned near the bridge.
"I asked him if we were going to be able to make it and he said it's going to be close," said driver Mark Novak. "We decided to try it and otherwise we would have had to go all the way back through Olympia".
"We didn't slip at all going across it."
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