Ah. . . my namesake is acting up. Beautiful river. Lots of family stories from this area.

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Crews battle to save homes along the Stilly
River washes away land as it flows past slide

OSO - Standing near the edge of his crumbling front yard Monday afternoon, Lon Slauson eyeballed the advance of the North Fork Stillaguamish River on his home. Behind him, the warning beeps of graders and dump trucks echoed. Crews hastily cut an emergency road through his back field, hoping to bring boulders to the river's edge in an attempt to save his home. Slauson gauged how fast the crews worked. He watched how swiftly his land vanished as the current gnawed away at the soil at a rate of 25 feet per hour. "Looks like the river's ahead of them," he said.

The race against the Stilly started Wednesday when a landslide plugged the river with an estimated 1 million cubic feet of debris. The debris dam forced the river to swing south. It plowed a new course through a tangle of alder and cottonwood trees - straight toward Slauson's home. On Monday, Slauson's back field was the frontline of the fight. If the river claimed his home, officials feared that a half dozen more would be lost in the neighborhood about 15 miles east of Arlington.

A key moment came about 4 p.m. Monday. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers finished its emergency road. Crews still needed permission from Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon to build a bulwark with boulders, said Doug Weber, manager of the Corps' emergency program. Reinforcing a river bank with rocks, known as rip rap, is not normally allowed under environmental rules designed to protect fish. "There needs to be a decision made quickly," Weber said as the clock ticked. "Definitely today. We're ready to start as soon as we get permission. We would work through the night."

Just before dusk, Reardon and other county officials decided the rocks were the best way to control the river's fury. "We wanted to save one house and potentially save five or six others," Reardon said after visiting the site. Steve Thomsen, acting county public works director, said the river's new course may actually help fish by creating new habitat under tree cover.

By about 6 p.m., an excavator was dropping four washing machine-sized boulders into the water every minute. Floodlights lit the area like a high school football game. "We want to stand and fight right here," Noel Gilbrough, a Corps flood engineer, said as he stood on Slauson's porch. By 6:30 p.m., the water level was dropping, and the home appeared to be in the clear -until the next storm.

Crews had worked throughout the weekend keeping the river's new path clear of trees and other debris. They feared that the river could dam up and spill through the neighborhood. Then heavy rain Sunday night and early Monday sent the water rising. By first light Monday, Slauson's front yard started to dissolve like sugar in the surging brown water. His well pump house, firewood shed and a neighbor's trailer drifted away. Meanwhile, the air trembled as huge alder trees crashed into the water as the bank washed away. "Nobody around here got any sleep last night," Slauson said.

"The scary thing is, this is not even a very big (flood) event," said John Engel of the county's public works department. "This is a really minor event, and it's up to the bank-full here. There isn't any overflow (space). The overflow now is going to be through the neighborhood." Larry Forsman on Monday still clung to the hope that his retirement home could be saved. "We're too old to pick a new spot," Forsman said. "If we have to, we have to. But our intention is staying."

The National Weather Service is forecasting more rain throughout this week. However, officials don't anticipate the same volume of rain that pelted the region starting Sunday, said Johnny Burg, a weather service meteorologist. Everett was nailed with 1 1/2 inches of rain from 4 a.m. Sunday to 4 a.m. Monday. So far this year 6.31 inches of rain have fallen in Everett, nearly two inches more than normal.