Canal breach floods Kennewick neighborhood

Brian Ball went into his backyard Monday night to do some yard work and saw a little trickle of water running into his yard.

He thought his neighbors’ water line was broken. But then water started coming through his fence and he knew the trouble was much bigger.

By the time he had called the Kennewick Irrigation District emergency phone line there was a hole a foot around in the canal and water was pouring through.

Next door the water that poured out of the canal broke down a section of the wooden backyard fence and smashed up against the back of the house, going up and over the basement windows.

Millions of gallons of water flowed out of the Highland Feeder canal, said Chuck Freeman, KID manager. Indications are that an animal burrowed through the wall of a canal.

Much of the water flowed into a cul-de-sac on 13th Avenue not far from the intersection of Columbia Center Boulevard and 10th Avenue, turning it into a lake and filling basements and more in houses that sat the lowest in the area. The breach occurred about 8 p.m.

The Bryan and Selena Perry family of five was one of the worst hit.

Two levels of their tri-level home had been flooded, with about 18 inches of dirty water on the main floor. Outside the home, watermarks came to Selena Perry’s waist.

“Drawers are full of water. The oven is full of water,” she said.

She had been making plans to celebrate their 10-year-old son’s birthday Sunday, when a neighbor pounded at the door to warn them that the neighborhood was flooding, she said.

The Perrys got out of their home with little more than the clothes on their backs, their cellphones and their cats and dogs, she said.

The experience was terrifying, she said.

The bedrooms on the highest level of the house were fine, she said Tuesday evening. And photographs hung on the walls above the flooding could be salvaged. But water in the 10-year-old’s bedroom had reached six feet deep, she said.

Selena Perry estimates that water in the cul-de-sac rose to 12 to 15 feet deep. One house near the end of the cul-de-sac had a line of mud across the front of the garage several feet high.

Even after the city of Kennewick had brought in a large pump to remove water Tuesday morning, the water still was so deep that in one place a row of mailboxes on poles appeared to float on top of the water.

The house that Laurie Salazar lives in with her husband, two young adult sons and one of their friends also was damaged enough that she said they may be staying in a motel for weeks.

She was sitting on the couch Monday night when she looked out the window and saw water on her property. When she got up to get a closer look, she saw it was flowing around both sides of her house from the back, she said.

Her family scrambled to get possessions out of their basement, including clothes and electronics in a bedroom, as firefighters told them they had 10 minutes before they needed to leave.

“It’s muddy and stinky. There is no electricity,” she said after returning to her house Tuesday.

The basement had been flooded with more than two feet of water contaminated with sewage after the house’s septic system failed.

One of the family’s cars, a Nissan Altima, was flooded and a total loss, Salazar said.

Ball said his family got off lucky and their house had minimal damage. He and family members were at the house Tuesday afternoon to try to salvage some food as the power remained off.

The family had been told to evacuate Monday night, which Ball did under protest. He took the day off work Tuesday because the lake of water separated his car from the street at the end of the cul-de-sac.

At least four families were told to evacuate Monday night. By noon Tuesday KID had word from its insurance company that four homes on the cul-de-sac had water damage and a fifth home in a nearby low-lying area did, too.

“We will make it right,” Freeman said. KID’s insurer should cover damage plus temporary housing until families can return to their homes.

The hole in the canal bank had been dammed up Monday night to stop the leakage, but a permanent repair could take up to 72 hours, Freeman said. He was at the cul-de-sac talking to homeowners Tuesday afternoon.

He’s not aware of past canal breaches in the area and staff had no reports of burrowing animals there.

However, animals tend to burrow deeper when the temperature gets hot, and Monday the Tri-Cities was in an early heat wave. The break — which a witness had told him started as a golf-ball size hole emitting water that grew bigger within minutes — could have been caused by a ground squirrel, a wood chuck or even a skunk, he said.

KID has had a state-licensed trapper catching burrowing animals in the Badger Canyon area, but now will have the trapper focus on the area near the canal break. A live trap is used to prevent harm to pets.

This story was originally published June 7, 2016 at 8:36 AM with the headline "Canal breach floods Kennewick neighborhood."