Engineer: Whatcom County road damage will cost millions to fix

JARED PABEN - THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

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More than two dozen roads throughout Whatcom County have sections that have been washed away, and the cost of repairing them will reach into the millions, the country road engineer said.

Meanwhile, county crews are still discovering damage to public roads caused by flooding and mudslides. They have nearly 1,000 miles of roads and about 165 bridges under their jurisdiction.

"I'm not talking debris on the roadway here. I'm talking about the road is gone; it is washed out," County Road Engineer Joe Rutan said. "It's going to be millions, with an 's.' How big that 's' is I can't tell you right now."

The damage comes at a time when Whatcom County, facing declining tax revenues, is cash strapped and has canceled a slew of road-improvement projects. Officials had reduced the list to emergency projects, such as repairing ailing bridges.

It also comes after December snowstorms forced the county to spend more than $700,000 from mid- to late December.

One contractor is working to repair a section of North Lake Samish Drive washed out by a creek, and the rest of the emergency work is being done by county crews, he said. Others locations include Turkington Road in Acme, Jensen Road off of Squalicum Lake Road, Marshall Hill and Truck roads near Deming and Emerald Lake Way just east of Bellingham.

In all, they have a list of about 25 major repairs, and the list is quickly growing, Rutan said. The Nooksack Valley area around Acme, in particular, was hit hard.

Crews are opening roads so stranded residents can get out, he said. As river and creeks levels drop, experts also will get the chance to look under bridges to assess damage.

Some county crews have worked 12-hour shifts since Dec. 12, when snow began to fall across the county, and they're exhausted. Rutan said he put in 19-hour days last week. Soon, the county expects to move most people back to eight-hour days, he said, because some work isn't safe at night and because overtime costs are expensive.

He appealed to drivers not to drive around "road closed" signs. It's unsafe for the driver and can cause more damage to the road, he said.

"We have probably more traffic on Truck Road now than we do normally, and it's closed and under water," he said.