Today was weird, I'm torn on two things that happened today. First off let me say that I wish what happened today on no one, that being said Today was a great day to be a photographer in Ellensburg. You may ask why and hopefully the following image will show you.
We have had a fair amount of snow in the past couple weeks, well the temps have been going up and last night it rained, well those two things combined with an area that has a lower elevation equals..... you guessed it flooding.
Today started off with a call from the boss (jeff) asking me to go to the West interchange of I-90 in ellensburg as there was some flooding at one of the gas stations. So following a quick shower I was of to check it out and see what I could images I could acquire. Little did I know my shower would be the first part of dealing with water today.
So I get down to the west interchange and this is what I see.
I doesn't take me long to decide this could be a better piece of main art then what I had shot the day before of Kittitas. So I call in and let Jeff know about it and continue to shoot, we end up running this as our main art.
So I'm thinking that not much more flooding is going to go on, Yeah not a good guess on my part. After our meeting we and some updating of our website, (which I might ad got over 25k hits today) I went out and found this.
This guy had gotten his truck stuck in I would say about 2-3 feet of water and was being pulled out by a front loader. He got pulled out and drove off in the truck. He was nice though and gave me his name, even though the front loader operator wouldn't. (little does that guy know this blog would make him famous to the 4 poeple who might look at this)
I headed back to the office and downloaded the images and then grabbed some lunch I had ordered about an hour and a half before. I got laughed at when I picked it up. After some more web updating and eating in between I was asked to see about the possibility of going up to snoqualmie because they just had an avalanche which knocked a condo several feet off its foundation. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but I-90 was closed for avalanche control. so that was a no go.
I then was told there was some flooding in dogtown or West Ellensburg as it is also known as. So after some quick asking/convincing I got the OK to go by some waders from Ranch and Home a store the paper has an account at. So I grabbed the camera stuff and went to buy them. Apparently I bought some nice ones I later found out. I then headed down to west Ellensburg, I got close then was told I could only go so far by a parking officer. So I jumped in my sweet waders and headed to where he said I could go. Let me premise this next part by saying that you should always obey an officer of the law. Today just wasn't going to work for that, so I started talking to a guy who worked for the City of Ellensburg and walked across the 2-3 foot deep stream which was normally Dollarway. This would be the start of a wading experience, no pun intended. The whole neighborhood was at least 2 feet deep in water. I found some people placing sandbags around a home and then another man carrying his cat in a kennel looking at a neighbors home. I was genuinally surprised that people were friendly with all this going on to them. After walking on a bit another man and his wife saw me walking with the cameras and called me over and invited me in to see their house. I had 6-8 inches of water in every room. The couch was on wood blocks along with other appliances. I got some shots of their home and kept walking.
He was just leaning on his fence as vehicles passed.
He told me he lost everything, and that this flood was alot worse then the one in 1996. Not really sure how to react I ask If he minds if I get some photos while he talks to me, he agrees. I got the above image while talking to him. It also got sent to the AP, since we belong to them its our duty to send them stuff. I really think this photo is moving, I'm usually very critical of my photos, but this one hits the feeling of the neighborhood squarely on the head of the nail.
Its kinda getting darker at this point so I keep walking and run into two EPD officers who are going door to door evacuating people. I decide to hang with them for a bit, turns out I'm glad I did. We put a photo page together and lead with this.
I also like this photo as it shows action but gives a good sense of place as the home is surrounded by water with no possible footpath visible. Many homes are like this one, yard completely buried under water. Following the walk with the officers, we catch a ride with a brush truck from the fire department to the Emergency operations center. I walk back to my car from there and then its back to the office to drop in all the photos I shot in the last 3 hours wandering through the flooded streets. I also get some crap for the look of the waders, which makes me want to wear them into the office tomorrow morning. Following a couple hours at the office, its home time. All in all work was a 12 hour adventure today, which felt like a workout. I made some good photos today, but like I said earlier I would not wish the flooding on anyone. I'm just glad that the people whom I talked with saw the bigger picture if you will as to why I was there and not think I was trying to exploit their situation. I think that gets lost on some people sometimes.
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