Don Whittington has seen the residents of Shoreline Drive in Chehalis come and go.
As the owner of Chehalis Rentals since 1984, he has a prime view of a neighborhood that serves as the unwilling face of repeated floods that have hit the area — events so severe that most people on Shoreline scattered for good.
“There’s only one person that held out after the 1996 flood,” Whittington said. “When the city offered to pay for everyone to leave, just about everyone said ‘OK.’ There’s been nothing here for 15 years.”
The city of Chehalis was successful in buying out 27 of 31 homes in the Shoreline Drive and Florida Avenue neighborhoods after the flood of 1996, using nearly $1.4 million in federal money to relocate affected residents. Today, Shoreline Drive is home to one house, just yards away from the city’s old water treatment facility — and directly across the street from Chehalis Rentals.
The only evidence the rest of the neighborhood ever existed: patches of open space in the midst of overgrown brush and brambles that have claimed plots of land where families once made their livelihood. Chehalis Community Development Director Bob Nacht said the city “had enough” after the 1990 and 1996 floods and ensured no one would ever be able to build in the area again.
“We knew it was going to remain a problem area, simply put,” Nacht said. “That entire side of the freeway there has always been a concern for us because it’s one of the first areas that gets hit, and they get hit hard.”
The desolation easily visible from Shoreline Drive could very well be a scenario that would expand to a greater area of Lewis County in the future, civic leaders fear, as the new Federal Emergency Management Agency’s proposed flood maps would cover more than twice the area currently defined under the floodway designation.
Chehalis: Businesses Would Suffer, Taxable Revenue Decline
Technically speaking, a floodway designation could be crippling for areas it would encompass. Under federal regulations, existing structures could remain, but in the case of another flood, residential homes suffering 50 percent damage of its market value in any disaster or event would not be rebuilt. Commercial buildings suffering the same fate could rebuild, but would need to raise their structures on a series of piers and piles.
That spells trouble for the Chehalis-Centralia Airport, Twin City Town Center, and the surrounding businesses and homes more than any other area, Nacht said.
“They got it bad in 2007, and if they got it again there’s no telling what would happen,” Nacht said. “My fear is that a flood the size of 2007 hits and now they can’t rebuild. It’s possible they could all just decide enough is enough, it costs too much to rebuild and skip town completely.”
Nacht fears such a designation would in effect create a much larger area than just the Shoreline Drive neighborhood — this time encompassing prime commercial real estate that the city and county both depend on for taxable revenue.
“You wouldn’t see any more development in the lowlands, simply because for one, you wouldn’t be able to build a home there unless it’s a farmhouse, and two, businesses could see their insurance costs go up,” Nacht said. “That’s not even mentioning the cost to rebuild an existing structure should they suffer damage under this 50 percent rule. Chehalis would change, no doubt.”
Centralia: More Homes than Businesses Affected
While a large portion of Chehalis’ revenue and tax engine is retail, the scenario is markedly different for Centralia, according to Centralia Community Development Director Emil Pierson. The proposed floodway would encompass mostly residential homes in low-lying areas surrounding Interstate 5 as well as a swath of Harrison Avenue between High and View streets — and would engulf the entire Miracle Mile that Chehalis and Centralia both share.
“The place that really concerns us are the Fairway Center and the fairgrounds,” Pierson said. “Most of our commercial areas would stay high and dry save for what’s in the Miracle Mile, but we’d still see some residences mainly around the Long Road area that would need to make some changes.”
Pierson said Centralia differs from Chehalis in that most areas currently in the floodplain haven’t been developed and would stay that way. More homes in Centralia, however, would be affected than businesses with the new floodway designation, mainly because FEMA does not view levees that currently protect homes from the Skookumchuck River’s ebb and flow as a 100-year levy.
But many homeowners have become proactive — spurred on by the 2007 flood — raising their homes and taking steps to avoid the floodway designation for their specific property.
“We’re trying to work with all our homeowners and trying to get them in any way possible to prepare now as if the maps do become approved,” Pierson said. “What people need to realize is by flood-proofing homes now, they could be grandfathered in because FEMA would see them as having taken steps to protect themselves before the maps came out. That’s a huge difference.”
Both Cities ‘United’ Against Proposed Flood Map
Although the scenarios slightly differ between Centralia and Chehalis, Pierson and Nacht both agreed there was “no doubt” the flood maps could severely slow development in the Twin Cities, eventually grinding new building and business growth to a halt in future decades.
“We could very well see businesses driven away, which completely affects the face of the region,” Nacht said. “It then becomes a question of if people want to relocate here, and then if they did, where would they build? For the people that choose to stay here, we’d probably see a loss of services because that tax revenue wouldn’t be here anymore.”
Pierson agreed, saying Chehalis’ and Centralia’s flood map concerns become shared among every Lewis County resident as everyone who maintains “any sort of business or home life” in the area would suffer in some capacity.
“We’re all united in our opposition to the flood maps as they stand,” Pierson said. “There’s no question they need to be updated, but this could totally turn Lewis County on its head. Even though we would have to see the maps pass to know exactly how it would happen, we’re hoping it doesn’t even get to that point.”
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Christopher Brewer: (360) 807-8235
