Seattle's South Park neighborhood prepares for next wave of flooding

Seattle's South Park neighborhood braces for more flooding

The South Park neighborhood in Seattle was practically submerged in water last month, with residents crossing the streets in canoes! Now, they're preparing ahead of another forecast of flooding in the area.

SEATTLE - Seattle's South Park neighborhood is preparing for a second round of king tides. They’re expected to arrive this weekend.

Right now, Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) crews are placing sand bags along the Duwamish River to help prevent flooding from happening again. They are also giving them out for free to anyone who might need them. The community is still recovering from the last round.

"We’ve been very proactive, because we didn’t obviously know that was going to happen, we didn’t predict something like that would happen for another 20 to 30 years," said SPU general manager Andrew Lee.

Lee said SPU is making sure that for the next king tide, they are prepared.

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"We’ve installed protective measures here, sandbags to try to prevent against from a similar event causing flooding on private property," said Lee. "We recognize that this type of flooding just has impacts to people’s lives and businesses, and we care about this community, and we’re invested in making sure that long term, this community is protected."

At the end of December, a king tide caused major floods in South Park. It forced people out of their homes and businesses. FOX 13 News spoke with a business owner who said they saw water sneak in from underneath the door.

Although Prism Graphics is at a higher elevation, they say they aren’t taking any chances.

"We’ve never had the tide come up so high—we’ve always had a little bit of flooding, but it’s never been quite so high," said Prism Graphics manager Stephanie Aird. "When trucks would go by, [water] would sneak in the door a little bit."

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"We were excited to see that [SPU is] trying to make an effort for this new upcoming high tide that we’re supposed to have," said Aird. "We are going to put all those sandbags out there, just in case… we’re not looking forward to this upcoming weekend and early Monday, but we’re all going to fight hard, as long as we can."

So, far Seattle Public Utilities has placed 11,000 sandbags in areas of high flood risk. Crews tell FOX 13 News they will be on site during the next king tide to help monitor the situation.