Nearly two weeks after King Salmon and Fields Landing were inundated with record-breaking floodwaters, many residents are still struggling to recover, with some facing tens of thousands of dollars in property damage.Among them are Linda and James Carter. The pair moved into their King Salmon home — a little light blue house just a stone’s throw away from the beach — shortly after they were married in 2010. In their 15-plus years in King Salmon, the Carters have seen their neighborhood flood countless times during storms and high tides, but they never worried much about their own home because a brick retaining wall surrounds the property. “That property has never flooded before,” Linda told the Outpost during a recent phone interview. “But on the morning of Jan. 2, we saw [the floodwaters] actually breaching our walkway and coming onto the property, but it didn’t come into the house or anything. Then on Jan. 3, the water had actually breached our wall, and within about 10 minutes, it was in the house. We only had about 10 minutes to get things up, and out of the water … [which got to be] just shy of a foot high.”The floodwaters damaged sheetrock and the flooring throughout their house, destroyed two refrigerators, a stand-up freezer, a dishwasher and totaled one of their cars. Linda also lost a photo album her mother had made for her when she was a kid.“We were so depressed about what we had already lost, we just quit looking for more stuff,” James said. “It was just beating us down. Those first three days, we were just in survival mode.”King Salmon is no stranger to flooding. At just three feet above sea level, the tiny bayside community has grown accustomed to the swollen canals, flooded streets and soggy lawns that come with winter rains, but this year was different.On Jan. 2, a combination of record-breaking King Tides, heavy rains and an intense storm surge pushed Humboldt Bay beyond its shores, inundating King Salmon with seawater. The tide gauge at the North Spit peaked at 10 feet that morning, breaking the previous record of 9.8 feet set in 2005, according to data from the National Weather Service in Eureka. On Jan. 3, a new record of 10.37 feet was set.The National Weather Service issued several weather alerts ahead of the storm-fueled King Tides and Humboldt County Office of Emergency Services (OES) shared flood safety tips and resources for people living in low-lying, flood-prone areas. On Jan. 2, Humboldt OES issued a notice urging people to avoid King Salmon due to extreme flooding, but residents were never asked to evacuate.Keep Reading
