Crews Working To Clear Mountain Passes East of Seattle, Including Snoqualmie | The Weather Channel – Articles from The Weather Channel

• Four main passes have been blocked.
• The closings came after days of heavy rain and snow.
• A 72-year-old man was missing and believed to be dead.

Days of rain, heavy snow, and a winter storm that blocked roads and the avalanche risk was high have closed key travel routes between Seattle and Point East, with closings expected to last until at least Sunday morning.

Travelers are advised to carefully review routes and adjust or delay travel as necessary.

All four mountain passes connecting west and east of Washington state were still closed on Saturday afternoon, and crews were working to clear up to 2 feet or more of snow in some areas.

Crews are working to evacuate Interstate 90 near Snowqualmie Pass in Washington state on Saturday, January 8, 2022.

(Washington State Department of Transportation-East via Twitter)

(MORE: America’s Most Extreme Weather Cities 2021)

The closures included Interstate 90 through Snoqualmie Pass, the main route over the Cascade Mountains in Washington, as well as Stevens Pass on US 2, White Pass on US 12 and Blewett Pass on US 97.

All have been closed since Thursday.

Parts of two other highways – I-5 in Washington and I-84 in Oregon – were open after being closed due to floods and landslides.

The weather is blamed for at least one likely death. A 72-year-old man in Cosmopolis, about 80 kilometers west of Olympia, never returned after taking his car to a higher level on Friday. Cosmopolis is located near the coast on the Chehalis River, where several areas have been flooded.

Officials fear the man’s vehicle was swept down a steep embankment next to his driveway in the flood, The Associated Press reported.

Flood evacuations were carried out in several counties on Friday.

In Seattle, a house in the Magnolia neighborhood was swept off its foundation and slid down a slope. One person was rescued and another escaped unharmed.

There were also two dogs in the house – one was found dead and the other was missing.

Another house nearby has been evacuated.

Washington Governor Jay Inslee declared a state of emergency, referring to a string of winter storms that have struck the state since mid-December. The latest, which went through Thursday and Friday, was called Hatcher by The Weather Channel.

Seattle experienced one of the wettest first weeks of January in 78 years.

Hoquiam, Washington, on the coast near Cosmopolis, had its wettest day on Thursday with about 15 cm of rain, according to the National Weather Service.

Most of East Washington, meanwhile, is still in a moderate to extreme drought, according to the latest report by the US Drought Monitor released on Thursday.

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