Thousands in WA still displaced as rivers recede
Dec. 13, 2025 at 6:00 am Updated Dec. 13, 2025 at 6:00 am
Mario Rincon holds his 2-year-old son, Daniel, outside their home, surrounded by water, in Burlington on Friday. Water from the Skagit River overflowed, flooding the neighborhood. (Karen Ducey / The Seattle Times)
By
Seattle Times staff
Mario Rincon stood outside his home with his 2-year-old son, Daniel, in his arms. The boy, unaware of the grim situation, kept asking to swim in the floodwaters. Rincon would soon put on waders himself to see the damage inside his flooded home.
Western Washington rivers receded Friday from the catastrophic levels reached earlier this week while thousands, like Rincon and his family, remained displaced from their devastated towns, flooded under feet of water.
Rincon only slept two hours Thursday night, worrying that his Burlington home had flooded.
The worst had happened by the time he checked his cameras early Friday morning. Three feet of water inundated the bottom level of his home, pouring into his garage, office and a family room he’d almost finished building.
“It’s frustrating. We’re feeling helpless watching the water and not being able to do anything,” Rincon said. He stayed at a casino hotel with his family the night before. “It’s not something I want anyone to experience.”
But maybe the timing was all for a reason, Rincon said. His wife was laid up at the casino hotel Friday, recovering from a C-section just over a week ago. She was originally scheduled for the operation Monday.
Alyssa, left, and Bobby Luecke, from Sumas, walk down a flooded street in Sumas on Friday. (Karen Ducey / The Seattle Times)
Skagit County officials urged parts of the Burlington area to evacuate their homes early Friday as a slough from the Skagit River started flooding homes. Shortly after midnight Friday, the Skagit River at Mount Vernon crested at a record 37.7 feet, surpassing the previous record set 35 years ago. The Skagit was one of at least four rivers to hit record levels this week from the atmospheric river storm system.
‘This situation is not over’
Bob Hammond, left, and Mike restack used sandbags after the flood waters recede Friday afternoon in Sultan. (Kevin Clark / The Seattle Times)
At least 180 people have been rescued; Pierce County alone rescued 60 people from one RV park Thursday evening. The remote town of Stehekin, on the north shore of Lake Chelan, faced “staggering” damage when it was hit by the flood that rushed down fire-scarred mountainsides.
Meanwhile, the flood put ski season and Leavenworth’s fabled holiday light display and Christmastown festival on hiatus.
Though Western Washington will likely see mostly dry skies and rivers sink below flood levels, the respite will be short-lived.
“This situation is not over, and it’s not going to be over yet for a number of days,” Robert Ezelle, director of Washington’s Emergency Management Division, said in a Friday news conference in Tukwila.
President Donald Trump granted Washington’s request for an emergency declaration in response to this week’s flooding, Gov. Bob Ferguson said Friday.
Residents scramble to escape flooding
Andy Wheeler heads toward his house to gets his waders from his boat and to see if food in the freezer is salvageable. He and his wife evacuated from their Burlington home Thursday. (Ellen M. Banner / The Seattle Times)
In Burlington, Skagit County, officials issued an evacuation notice for nearly 10,000 residents, and the notice remained in place Friday afternoon. All of the 100-year flood plain, the main population center for the county that includes much of Burlington, was already set to a Level 3 evacuation order, meaning “GO NOW.”
Andy Wheeler’s phone woke him up around 6 a.m. Friday telling him the motion sensor on his front door camera was going off.
“I woke up and looked at the cameras and went, ‘Man, this is not good,’” Wheeler said.
Brown water lapping up against the yard ornaments had set off the motion sensor, and he could see water in the backyard cameras, too.
Wheeler and his wife had evacuated their home in Burlington, which they had lived in for the past 20 years, on Wednesday, listening to local officials’ recommendations, and were staying with family in Sedro-Woolley. Although most homes were not affected, many close to Gages Slough connected to the Skagit River, like Wheeler’s, were severely inundated.
Wheeler drove his truck back around 12:30 p.m. Friday to pick up some food from his freezer. He stepped out of his truck onto his flooded driveway in sneakers, socks and shorts, the water coming up above his ankles. The water inside the house was about 3-4 inches deep, he said, but he and his wife had picked up most of their belongings off the floor.
At about 2 a.m. Thursday, Mike Khazak and Sarah Hansen’s home in Deming, Whatcom County, on the Nooksack River began to break apart.
First, a huge tree crashed right next to their house, behind their bedroom window, waking up Hansen, she said. She and her boyfriend left with their two dogs, Ollie and Rudy, to move their cars.
That’s when they saw the water was hitting the side and front of their house.
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“It was very fast,” Hansen, 52, said.
At about 7 a.m., Hansen said, their home “just broke free and went in the river.”
A video taken by Hansen shows the house being carried away. The water reached the land underneath the couple’s garage and their barn, where their six goats lived. After the couple saved the goats, Hansen felt relieved but still “beyond” horrified.
Hansen and Khazak are staying in a hotel with their dogs. The Whatcom Humane Society, where Hansen works, is watching their goats.
Dramatic rescues and saves continue
James Richardson of Sumas tries to restart his truck Friday. He tried to drive it through a flooded street Thursday, but when it stalled, he off-loaded a boat that had been on the trailer and took that the rest of the way home. (Karen Ducey / The Seattle Times)
Search-and-rescue agencies recounted dramatic rescues throughout the week requiring helicopters, inflatable kayaks and even tractors to assist residents who were caught in rapidly rising floodwaters.
Along the Snohomish and Skykomish rivers, many of the 60 rescues made this week have involved people driving into flooded areas, according to the Snohomish County Emergency Operations Center.
In Sumas, Whatcom County, four people were trapped in their attic as the water rose 8 to 10 feet outside their home. With firefighters and U.S. Border Patrol unable to reach them, the Coast Guard deployed rescue helicopters from air stations Port Angeles and Astoria, Ore.
Video from the Coast Guard helicopter shows crews flying over what resembles a river more than an area of houses, save for the roofs poking out of the water. A rescue swimmer was then roped down to the roof of a porch and assisted two people through a second-floor window before hoisting them into the helicopter. The rescue swimmer remained on the roof with the other two, who were picked up by a second helicopter.
No one was injured, according to the Coast Guard.
Darla Halverson, left, and her neighbor, Dennis Auckland, look out Dennis’ window at the Snohomish River, which had flooded nearly up to his apartment unit on the first floor in Snohomish on Friday. The building lost power Thursday night, and Dennis contemplated leaving, but stayed. (Karen Ducey / The Seattle Times)
Meanwhile, on Thursday morning, a Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife swift-water rescue team maneuvered a boat through Hamilton near the Skagit River in Skagit County and found a woman standing on a porch. As the water rose past her porch steps, a rescue officer asked the woman how she was doing. In the video posted by the department, she apologizes, then says she’s scared.
“I live here all alone, and it’s my first time doing this,” she said.
The video showed the boat driving away with the woman, who says “bye, car,” to a red vehicle partially submerged in the water.
James Richardson was one of many across Western Washington who had to abandon his vehicle after trying to drive through floodwater.
Coming back from his logging job Thursday, Richardson drove through a watery roadway three blocks from home in Sumas, but his 1987 Toyota EFI pickup, loaded with over 400,000 miles, couldn’t take it and died.
Luckily, he was towing a boat. Richardson climbed into the vessel, cut it free from its hitch and steered it home. He pulled it up to the deck of his home, which he’d just lifted several feet off the ground after the last flood in 2021.
He waded to the gray pickup Friday afternoon and tried to start it up again. The truck still had the boat trailer attached.
No luck this time. It groaned with the turn of his key. Richardson just laughed, saying he’d have to “tear her apart and put her back together again,” and walked home.
Cleanup begins
Volunteers and employees clean the floors at Red Pepper Pizzeria and Pasta after the floodwaters receded Friday afternoon in Sultan, Snohomish County. (Kevin Clark / The Seattle Times)
On Friday afternoon, residents of Sultan were busy cleaning up. The nearby Skykomish River had receded, but sandbags were still piled on every corner and doorstep, and many residents and business owners were dealing with waterlogged floors.
James Blakely sat on his couch, propping the door open to his home, just blocks from the river park. He had to stay with family members when the floodwaters rose and soaked his carpeted floors. The water had risen 3 to 4 inches inside the house, which was up a few stairs.
Blakely said in years past, water had gotten up to the level of the stairs, but had never flooded the house. He said most of the electrical work inside the house should be ok, but he’d likely have to use a shop vacuum to get the water out, and floors would likely have to be replaced.
“We want to get back in here as soon as possible,” he said. At Red Pepper Pizzeria and Pasta on Sultan’s Main Street, employees and volunteers used brooms or squeegees to push the water in rivulets out the door and then scrubbed the floors with soapy water.
Lorna Bussing, the owner, said the restaurant had a pump that was working during the flood and helped keep the water damage inside to a minimum. Still, the restaurant was closed for two days and filled with close to 2 feet of water at its worst. They had to throw out many of their supplies, including dough and prepped food items. But with community help, Bussing said they expected to reopen some time Friday.
“We put it out on Facebook, and we have about 14 people in here helping,” she said. “It’s been very nice, the community response.”
Across the street, Molli Moss did the same thing — pushing water out of the front door of her new restaurant, Harvest Kitchen.
Moss and her husband plan to open the restaurant in January. After being stuck at home for a few days because their road was flooded, she wasn’t sure what condition the place would be in. But she said sandbagging helped keep the water out, and there was minimal damage inside.
“On Tuesday, there were volunteers filling sandbags who brought them down for us,” she said. “The community’s great. It’s a small town; we’ve been through this before.”
Molli Moss cleans the floors of Harvest Kitchen after the floodwaters receded Friday afternoon in Sultan, Snohomish County. (Kevin Clark / The Seattle Times)
Seattle Times reporters Paige Cornwell, Alex Halverson, Greg Kim, Jayati Ramakrishnan, Kai Uyehara, Ryan Nguyen and Dahlia Bazzaz contributed to this report.
Seattle Times staff.
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