This page will contain all the information for the September-October Sauk-Suiattle CERT training class which will conclude with a Flood Scenario Training Exercise Sunday October 7th, 2007. Please check back as we continually update this page.

For more information please contact Lynda Harvey at 360.651.3295 or email to lharvey@nwtemc.org

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where: Sauk Suiattle Indian Reservation, Chief Brown Lane, Darrington, WA

map (from Mapquest): Sauk-Suiattle Indian Reservation, Darrington WA

when: September 22nd and 23rd; October 6th and 7th

what: The NWTEMC will be conducting Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Training for the Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe and surrounding communities, which will conclude with a realistic full-scale Flood Event Exercise on the Reservation on Sunday October 7th, 2007.

 Disaster Event Scenario*:

First, let's call this a big-time flood, at least as big as the 2003 Sauk River flood event. Early big snows followed by a Pineapple Express, it all washes into the river, swells floodwaters quickly.

1st: The 1949 channel fills but does not overflow. The USGS gage downriver on the Sauk starts to approach 100,000 cfs and the crest is still hours away, based on the forecast. (The 2003 flood crested at 103,000 cfs.) None of the marked trees on the rez start to lean, but we notice an ominous logjam building very near the mouth of the 1949 channel. Some of the main current starts to bounce off that jam and pour a more forceful current into the channel, instead of just backwater. Soon after, we notice our first trees start to lean as the bank begins eroding. We call for the first stage of evacuation.

2nd: Logs continue to stack up near the mouth of the channel, and we call for a full evacuation as water starts to back up from the channel into the ditch. Water spills onto the rez at the southeast corner. But while we're mobilizing, the logjam bursts, and a new torrent rips a significant amount of bank away, undermining at least one home.

*special thanks to Scott Morris, Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe, Watershed/Flood Planner for developing this scenario.