In the past month, Renton has weathered two massive storms, each the type that hits only once every few years and almost never back-to-back.
Now the bills to fight the snowstorm in late December and near-record flood levels of the Cedar River earlier this month are coming due. The city hopes that the federal government will help pay.
The City of Renton is estimating that the cost to keep the roads clear of snow and ice during the two-week snowstorm leading up to Christmas will reach about $200,000.
The bulk of that cost – nearly $120,000 – is for the hundreds of hours city crews worked nearly around the clock starting on Dec. 12 to plow the snow and ice and lay down sand.
The arduous task of picking up about 4,000 tons of sand began soon after the snow was gone. The city is trying to decide the fate of the now-grimy and debris-filled sand. The hope is that it can be recycled.
The city is still putting together the costs of responding to the flooding of the Cedar River that began on Jan. 8, when a warm Pineapple Express rainstorm out of the Pacific Ocean rapidly melted a huge snowpack in the Cascades, filling the Cedar and other rivers to overflowing.
Compiling those costs is more difficult than for the snowstorm because so many more city departments were involved in responding to the flood, according to city spokeswoman Preeti Shridhar.
At its height, the level of the Cedar reached 16.6 feet at the U.S. Geological Survey gauge in downtown Renton, less than a foot lower than the record reading in November 1990. However, the flooding, especially downtown and at the Renton Municipal Airport, wasn’t as widespread as in 1990 because of flood-control projects the city, Boeing and other agencies completed in the last 20 years.
The city is continuing to clean up the mess left behind by the flooding, including layers of silt the river deposited at the city’s golf course and on the trails along the river.
According to Shridhar, the city has filed a claim for reimbursement with the Federal Emergency Management Agency for the costs of the snowstorm.
The city has a budget for such emergencies, she said, but “this was beyond what we normally expect.”
In the next week or so, the city will submit a similar claim with FEMA for the flooding
costs. That claim likely could include the damage to the roadway leading up to state
bridge over the Cedar River near the golf course that was undermined by the river. Those repair costs could run into the millions of dollars.
It’s likely King County will pay for the removal – estimated at the high end at $15,000 – of a logjam under the Williams Avenue bridge, which was closed for about a week.
The final piece of the logjam was removed last Friday afternoon. Shortly afterward, weary-looking county crews were cutting up the final chunks of logs, rootwads and debris placed on the bridge deck; the bridge reopened after that work was done.
A chunk of the logjam broke free, something that officials had hoped to avoid, according to Derek Akesson, a design engineer with the City of Renton Transportation Systems Division. The concern was that the logjam could get stuck against another bridge.
The floating jam made it under the Logan Avenue bridge just downriver. Akesson called the Boeing Co., which reported to him that the mass of debris also passed under its bridge at Renton Municipal Airport and into Lake Washington.
Many of the logs sticking out from under the bridge had been removed by mid-morning. Next, in a more difficult task, the county used its equipment to reach under the bridge to remove the big chunks of the log jam.
The work was being done with safety in mind, according to Peter Hahn, deputy administrator of the city’s public works department. The Renton Fire Department’s swift-water rescue team was just downstream in case a worker fell into the river.
Also standing by were Puget Sound Energy employees. As a precaution, the utility shut off the flow of natural gas in 12-inch pipeline attached to the bridge. The shutoff was not expected to affect any natural-gas customers.
The county removed the logs, because it has told the city they came from a project upriver where it had chained together logs for fish habitat. Sparks flew as one of the workers cut through a chain so the log could be lifted to the bridge deck.
The county has the experience and equipment to remove such logjams.
“Obviously, they know what they are doing,” said Hahn at the scene.
The debris bent a support beam on the underside of the bridge, but the damage wasn’t severe enough to concern county engineers who did the inspection, according to Akesson.
HERE ARE SOME USEFUL WEATHER-RELATED WEBSITES:
TO VIEW NOAA’S FLOOD MAP, GO TO:
FOR THE LATEST INFORMATION ON RENTON’S FORECAST AND RAIN TOTALS, GO TO:
EMERGENCY INFORMATION FROM THE CITY OF RENTON:
City of Renton emergency information
FOR THE LATEST INFORMATION ON PASS CONDITIONS, GO TO
