How rainy is it? In the late afternoon, West Seattle-based environmental advocate “Diver Laura” James – whose specialties include stormwater-runoff education – caught these maxed-out sewer covers at the east dead-end of Yancy between West Seattle Athletic Club and Longfellow Creek (map).
The National Weather Service has two alerts out for our area – a Special Weather Statement that warns the rain “has led to an increased threat of landslides in Western Washington … The threat will increase tonight into midday Sunday as heavy rain affects the area. Several inches of rain over the past several days has increased soil moisture to high levels across Western Washington,” and a Flood Watch that speaks for itself. Here, by the way, is the runoff’s outfall to Longfellow, as noted by Laura:
To find out how to minimize the toxicity of what’s in runoff water, check out tox-ick.org. You can also check this real-time map to see which marked outfalls have combined-sewer overflows happening right now, the same kind of overflows that city and county projects under way now are aiming to reduce.
P.S. The NWS says the official gauge at Sea-Tac has collected almost four inches of rain in the first week of March – ending yesterday.
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