The rural roads leading to and from our coast are now open, and a lot of the power has been restored. Highway 101 along the Oregon coast also is now open. However, the coastal town of Astoria still doesn't have power or telephone service. They should have that restored by this weekend, but it will take awhile for the buildings along the coast to be repaired.
The worst area of damage was in the mountain towns of Vernonia, Jewell, and Mist. They are located along the Nehalem River (west of Portland), which flooded after getting over 11 inches of rain. The towns were totally devastated and will be without power or telephone service for a long time. They were completely flooded out and cut off from all civilization until the water subsided (took a few days). After the water went down, the governor was able to tour the towns and see how much was destroyed. He was awe struck and hardly able to express his sorrow upon seeing all of the destruction. We saw pictures on TV and it looked like everyone lost most of everything they owned. The water was at least 3 feet deep in all of the homes and buildings. What is left after the water went down is thick mud and total destruction... to me, it looked like another New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. As far as I know, none of the people had flood insurance and are now relying on FEMA and other sources in order to restart their lives. Our prayers go out to each and everyone affected.
The railroad service traveling through Washington has now been restored. The I-5 freeway traveling through Chehalis and Centralia (WA) is still closed with more damage than they were expecting. The road was flooded for several miles with 10 feet of water. Some of the pavement is now having to be replaced and even some areas under the highway is needing to be repaired. The WDOT is hoping to have most of it repaired in a few days. That freeway is a major link between Canada and California, so the closure has been causing havoc with many companies shipping products north and south. There are by passes, but it involves hundreds of miles of going out of the way. Local country roads that smaller cars can travel on are not passable by large trucks. Some truck drivers tried using the rural roads and ended up jack-knifing their trucks and causing those roads to be blocked for a while.
Ever since the rain & wind quit, we have had fairly nice weather with just a couple showers passing through. The next few days are supposed to be in the high 40s and low 50s with lots of sun breaks (minimum rain). Salem (our home) hardly had any problems with the wind or rain. Our only problems were some storm drains were clogged with leaves which caused some street corners to be a bit flooded. We never lost power or had any damage.
We now have our Christmas lights on! I will post pictures as soon as they are ready.
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