Flash flood killed Madison Valley woman
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By ERIC NALDER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Friday, December 15, 2006
seattlepi.nwsource.com
Kate Fleming, 41, was in her basement sound room, recording digital books for her fledgling business, when a four-foot wall of water rushed down Dewey Place East. The water slammed her small house in Seattle's Harrison neighborhood so hard that it smashed the north foundation and filled the basement, trapping Fleming inside.
Fleming's partner, dental assistant and interior designer Charlene Strong, rushed out of the house screaming for help, neighbors said.
"She ran out screaming, 'my partner is stuck in the basement, my partner is drowning,'" said David Tilford, 28, an exercise specialist who works at Valley Medial Center who lives a few houses away and rushed to help when he heard Strong's calls for help.
Tilford couldn't reach the drowning woman.
"The basement was 100 percent full of water," he said.
Other neighbors called 9-1-1 frantically. The Seattle Fire Department arrived with scuba diving gear, but it was too late, Tilford said.
Fleming, a voice-over actress, died of apparent drowning, a tragedy that has struck her neighbors hard. Four of her friends gathered outside her small green bungalow home about 10:30 this morning.
"She was a wonderful, goodhearted soul," said Sarah Trethewey, a longtime resident of the neighborhood who is building a new house next door and had come to the scene to check her property when the tragedy struck.
The neighborhood is near an area that has had flooding problems in the past. However, a poorly constructed storm drainage system has since been upgraded, and neighbors said the street had not been flooded in years, Trethewey and others said.
A huge pile of mud and debris and a dislodged power pole have completely clogged the roadway up the hill and around the corner from Fleming's house on Dewey Place East.
Ingrid Wiengren Link, 35, another neighbor and friend of Fleming, said she was caring for her two children after her husband David Link had left for the Seahawks game when water started to rise on Dewey Place.
She was just thinking of going out to clear leaves from the drain outside her house when the water rose rapidly, quickly topping the steps that lead to her house and filling the roadway completely. The street remains clogged with mud. The power went out, then a wall of water surged past her house and into Fleming's home. Soon, Weingren Link heard Strong's screams. She scrambled to find her cell phone to call for help.
'It just poured down here. I don't know where the water came from," she said. As she waited for the fire department to arrive, she hoped for Fleming's safety.
Wiengren Link, who moved here from Sweden with American husband in January, was horrified to learn from a reporter that Fleming had died. "I just wanted to have her safe," she said.
Fleming, a slender woman with dark hair, had lived in the neighborhood for six or seven years. She and her partner cared meticulously for their tiny house, had three cats and a dog, all of which survived, Tretheway said.
Fleming was an award-winning audio book narrator who recorded more than 200 titles for such authors as Louise Erdrich, Joyce Carol Oates and Ann Rule.
With a background in acting, Fleming often recorded under "Anna Fields" - the name of her great-grandmother - through her company, Cedar House Audio, which she operated out of her house.
Fleming won a prestigious "Audie" award in 2004 for her reading of Ruth Ozeki's book, "All Over Creation."
Vanessa Ho contributed to this report. Eric Nalder can be reached at 206-448-8011 or ericnalder@seattlepi.com.
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