Landslides, flooding concerns grow in King County

AUBURN, Wash. – The Puget Sound keeps getting hammered with rain and it’s taking its toll on the area.

“A lot of rain. A lot more than usual,” said Auburn homeowner Jerry Gregoire.

It’s causing the Green River in Auburn to rush up to Gregoire’s property.

The river has swallowed all but three of 11 steps from the banks to his backyard.

“Just the last couple of days, it came up to where you would actually have to walk into the water to go onto the steps,” said Gregoire.

Just above his home sits two massive landslides closing SE Lake Holm Road.

“The mudslide up above, it took my water line out. And one of the citizens up above ... somebody kinked my hose for me and saved my water,” said Gregoire.



More wet weather hit Federal Way as Vince Chaijroen walked by the damage in this neighborhood.

“The land around here is kind of eroding quite a bit,” said homeowner Chaijroen.

One hillside off the 2800 block of SW Dash Point Road became saturated with all the water.  A massive mudslide came rushing down, rolled over the road.

“That’s the first time it’s really slid this much,” said Chaijroen.

The mud plowed through, and large trees snapped. Now, with more rain saturating the already unstable ground, King County closed the 2800 block of SW Dash Point Road.

Chaijroen says he’s a civil engineer and says this has been years in the making.

“A lot of sliding, a lot of erosion that’s going on around here. I’ve had an eye out for it for quite sometime,” said Chaijroen.

Q13 News keeps checking with King County and many of the areas known as “slide zones” have no timeline for when crews will work to clear them or when drivers will regain access to these roads.