AUBURN, Wash. - The dangerous Green River lost its sting in the early 1960s when a dam ended floods that frequently swamped its Seattle-area valley.
But the years have weakened the dam, and now residents and businesses are involved in a feverish campaign to fortify the heavily developed Green River Valley against a potentially catastrophic flood during the winter rainy season.
Engineers have said there is a 1-in-4 chance that a flood will inundate the valley. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been working around the clock to prevent flooding, namely by pumping tons of grout into the problem area — a dam abutment that was found badly weakened by a torrential storm last winter.
In recent weeks, some 40 miles of levees have been raised with sandbags, evacuation routes and emergency warning systems have been set up, and residents have been urged to assemble "go kits" — documents, medicine and other valuables they'll need if forced to flee on short notice.
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Friends and neighbors gathered at Bobby Kendall's place on a recent day to help him build a 2-foot barrier of sandbags around his suburban Seattle home.
"My house is my biggest asset," Kendall said. "I don't want it to wash away or get filled with mud."
A similar effort is under way at a Boeing Co. facility, where workers put up an 8-foot-high floodwall. Managers of a nearby Starbucks roasting plant are in constant communication with federal disaster officials. Other efforts have ranged from homeowners installing one-way valves to prevent toilets backing up, to Boeing erecting the sandbag wall around its sprawling Space Center in nearby Kent.
The valley cities and King County have held scores of informational meetings, passed out hundreds of thousands of sandbags, posted extensive information on special Web sites and organized a "reverse 911" system to automatically call or message residents if an emergency is declared.