Mud deposited from a flooded Cowlitz River covers the floor of the laundry facility at Cascade Peaks Campground near Randle on Wednesday afternoon.
Jim Shephard, a maintenance worker at Cascade Peaks Campground, walks into his rental house behind the resort's office after flooding forced him and his wife to evacuate early Wednesday morning.
Jim Shephard, a maintenance worker at Cascade Peaks Campground, points to where nearly two feet of water flooded his rental house behind the resort's office after being evacuated early Wednesday morning.
Jim Shephard, a maintenance worker at Cascade Peaks Campground, walks over the muddied floor of the laundry facility at the campground near Randle.
A cat walks along the driveway at Cascade Peaks Campground on Wednesday afternoon near Randle.
RANDLE — It was the pitch black middle of night and the river was nothing but a torrent of crashing sounds with ominous overtones.
Keeping tabs on the rising tide by eye was impossible, but when floodwaters came rushing through their home, Jim Shephard and his wife knew it was time to get out.
“We waited until there was about 2 feet of water in the house before we left. It must have been 3 o’clock in the morning and the cops were waiting for us on the road,” said Shephard, who has lived in Lewis County for the past two decades. “One of the cops said, ‘You need a rescue?’ and I said, ‘I think I can drive my truck across,’ and he said, ‘Oh no!’”
“We had to walk across here,” said Shephard, pointing across more than a 60-yard swatch of parking lot and swamped grass at the entrance of the Cascade Peaks Campground that would have been about 3 feet at the time.
“I think I probably could have made it, but you never know. It was pretty cold crossing this way.”
Shephard and his wife bunked with some friends nearby. Despite their distress, they consider themselves lucky.
Upriver from the campground in the light of Wednesday morning, Packwood resident Jim Blair witnessed the might of the river and a fate the Shephards may have narrowly escaped. According to Blair, he watched on as a house floated down the Cowlitz River and then disintegrated in the raging current on the east end of Packwood.
“First it was a fence, then it was the roof, and then it was just coming down in pieces,” said Blair. “I don’t know who it belonged to, but it belonged to somebody and it’s gone now.”
The Shephards act as caretakers of the campground by keeping up maintenance and running the office.
Jim Shephard explained that they kept a close eye as the surrounding mountain peaks filled with snow over the weekend, and then looked on anxiously as the rains came in, temperatures rose and the snow level skyrocketed.
For reference, nearby White Pass accumulated 18 inches of snow last weekend.
“Then the snow level went all the way up to like 8,000 feet,” he said. “I think that’s where all the water came from.”
That converging rainfall and snowmelt covered almost all of Randle, including the entire Cascade Peaks Campground, in multiple feet of water. Nearly everything in the fickle river’s path that wasn’t nailed or tied down was washed downstream.
“There were six trailers parked back there and we called all of the owners, but only one of them came out and got it,” said Shephard, who noted that he was still unable to access that area of the campground by late afternoon on Wednesday.
He’s afraid of what he’ll find when he does look.
“They were right in the line of fire,” he said.
The Shephards did all they could to prepare in advance of the flood by tying down big objects such as picnic tables and a propane tank, and moving vehicles up to higher ground. Mud covered half of the wheel well of one lucky pickup truck, but another vehicle did not fare so well. A sedan belonging to Shephard’s son took on a full torrent of water.
“My son’s probably going to be real mad at me and ask why I didn’t move his car. Well, I couldn’t find the keys,” lamented Shephard, who was mostly grateful that the car didn’t float away.
The Shephards have only been living along the Cowlitz River in Randle since June, “and this is the third flood already,” said Shephard, who noted that Wednesday’s was the worst of them all, so far.
“Like I say, it could have been worse,” said Shephard. “If we hadn’t had time to prepare, it could have been much worse.”
Shephard anticipates that the cost of fixing the outdoor swimming pools and the walls and flooring of their outbuildings, including the popular laundromat, to be the campground’s biggest flood-related expenses, and he’s just about ready to get back to work reorganizing Mother Nature’s mischief.
“You’ve got to do what you can when you can,” Shephard said. “If you don’t, and you let it go until the end, it could be 10 times worse.”
For at least one night though, Shephard was simply hoping for some peaceful and dry shuteye for him and his wife.
“I’m going to go in and get some sleep now,” said Shephard. “I’ll save the rest of this stuff for tomorrow.”
