High and Dry

MT. VERNON - The word "mitigation" likely will never be declared the most beautiful word in the English language. But in communities beset by natural disasters it's synonymous with "hope."

Communities like Mt. Vernon, Washington, a city of 35,000 sixty miles north of Seattle and a few miles east of the Salish Sea. The Skagit River runs through the middle of town, good news because it nurtures the farms that make Skagit County among the 10 richest agricultural counties in Washington state but bad news since its often-flooded downtown businesses and much of the city's affordable housing stock.

"You have to be kind of stoic about it," the owner of a downtown bookstore told (KIR)-TV after a 2012 flood. When the river rises and starts lapping at his back door, he said, he just opens it to "let the water run right through the front."

Not anymore. In three phases beginning in 2010 the City began construction of a 1,75 mile, $30 million flood wall, funded by local governments, the State as well as a low-interest $1 million HUD-guaranteed Section 108 loan. (www.hudexchange.info/programs/section-108/) In late September 2019 the City celebrated its completion.

Come flood season, said the public works director, "I am a lot more confident and less stressed," noting that, before its completion, Mt. Vernon would have just 12 hours' notice to recruit 1,500 to 2,000 volunteers to a wall of 150,000 sand bags to protect downtown. Twelve hours, he added, of "white-knuckled, stressful crisis management." Now it takes a city crew of between 8 and 20 to put up the wall up and keep downtown high and dry.

And more. In its design, said Mayor Jill Boudreau in a FEMA YouTube, (www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sgLiBuv2f4) "the project needed to be not just a gigantic wall. It needed to be an amenity., for protection" from the Skagit when it rises, but as a riverside promenade for moms and dads and kids to enjoy the Skagit. "So, it functions during flood season in a very critical way, but it functions every day in a secondary critical way."

Now completed, the City expects (http://mountvernonwa.gov/510/FEMA) the project is expected to be an economic catalyst that will "attract mixed use redevelopment, generate jobs and increase housing resulting in a larger commercial tax base while preserving Mount Vernon's downtown character."

That's even more likely now that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has, says The Skagit Valley Herald, (www.goskagit.com/news/local_news/fema-grants-mount-vernon-floodplain-request/article_fd3f9173-96ac-5175-8585-fbbc3cae0d6a.html) announced that downtown Mt. Vernon will be removed from the 100-year floodplain map. That, the Mayor explained, means "a 40 percent reduction in flood insurance premiums" and removal of "223 buildings from the regulatory floodplain" increasing community safety and improving economic vitality of the downtown business district" Mount Vernon, she said (www.goskagit.com/news/local_news/fema-grants-mount-vernon-floodplain-request/article_fd3f9173-96ac-5175-8585-fbbc3cae0d6a.html) on hearing of FEMA's approval, "is at a turning point now."

"This is a case study in preparedness," said HUD Northwest Regional Administrator Jeff McMorris. "At HUD we're very pleased we had a tool in our toolbox to help the City get the job done."

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