The Humboldt Bay community of King Salmon continues to recover from historical tidal flooding that inundated dozens of homes, reportedly damaged at least two houses beyond repair and displaced a number of community members earlier this month.This week, in an online meeting organized by the Humboldt Community Organizations Active in Disaster (COAD), participants gathered to discuss the ongoing recovery efforts and long-term work to keep King Salmon and neighboring communities literally and figuratively above water as sea-level rise, extreme weather events associated with climate change and tectonic forces bear down on a community already accustomed to living with floodwater.First weekend of JanuaryWhereas King Salmon residents and their neighbors in Fields Landing have dealt with nuisance flooding for decades, the events of Jan. 2-4 were unprecedented in modern record.According to NWS Warning Coordination Meteorologist Ryan Aylward, water levels in the Humboldt Bay area on Jan. 2 and 3 “far exceeded” previous records for high tides, reaching over 10 feet above Mean Lower Low Water (MLLW) level both days. Levels of 10.01 and 10.37 above MLLW far exceeded the previous record set 20 years ago of 9.98 (adjusted from a previously stated 9.88).Humboldt COAD executive director Nick Bown-Crawford, who hosted this week’s meeting, noted that 42 homes experienced “major impacts” by FEMA standards, 18 inches of water inundating the property, noting that “just one inch of water in your home can cause tens of thousands (of dollars) worth of damage.”Immediate needs of the communityBown-Crawford told the Times-Standard by phone last weekend that Humboldt COAD had initially been contacted by Cal Poly Humboldt personnel working with the county on long-term resiliency plans for the flood-prone southern Humboldt Bay communities of King Salmon and Fields Landing. He said that the organization, which is not a first-responder organization but rather a coalition that works on disaster recovery, has benefited greatly from the university’s students, faculty and staff on the ground and their work as liaisons in the community.Within a week of the initial flooding, Bown-Crawford said, “we activated on the ground. We immediately connected with the community liaisons and started meeting community members to start establishing an immediate set of unmet needs, with the effort to restore any health/safety issues that might be in the home.”COAD staff joined the American Red Cross and others in providing relief during the initial flooding. COAD’s efforts included distributing cleaning supplies to prevent mold and working with the county’s Department of Public Works to bring in dumpsters to dispose of waterlogged and mold-susceptible carpets, textiles and other materials, Bown-Crawford said. COAD has distributed food provided by its member organization Food for People and is working to help residents replace damaged and destroyed necessities like water heaters, washing machines, clothing, temporary housing for displaced persons and other needs.Community members can donate to COAD’s efforts and learn more about the situation in King Salmon at https://www.humboldtcoad.org. The organization is currently looking to provide a number of resources that have been requested by King Salmon residents, including plywood, dehumidifiers and fans, extension cords, towels and bedding, laundry supplies, refrigerators, laundry machines, water heaters, gift cards and transportation assistance.Bown-Crawford said that the flood will certainly not meet the federal government’s extraordinarily high threshold for an emergency declaration through FEMA and will likely not qualify for many state-administered disaster relief funds, and COAD is working to “start utilizing our full network of NGOs … to try and see where we can fill some of the gaps where people aren’t able to file insurance claims.”Recovery benefits from researchers’ relationships in the communityLaurie Richmond, a professor with Cal Poly Humboldt’s Department of Environmental Science & Management, co-chair of the university’s Sea Level Rise Institute and active member of the Humboldt County-led FLKS Living With Water project, has been researching life in King Salmon and neighboring communities for a number of years.In her capacity with FLKS Living with Water, Richmond said, she and her team — graduate students Kailin Sepp and Clara Riggio and community liaisons Niki Sutterfield, Jenica Feite, Maurice Viand and Kathy Moley with the Humboldt Grange and Athena Doyle, an undergraduate student — help to “lead the community engagement piece” of the project.Their work has included community workshops in Fields Landing and King Salmon, as well as a door-to-door survey of King Salmon’s 207 residences that has provided key information to assess the significance of this year’s flood events.“We did interviews; we gathered photos; we had participatory mapping exercises where people could, on maps, draw like these are the at-risk areas, and all of that data goes into the vulnerability assessment and thinking about adaptation planning,” Richmond said.She said that the recent survey effort reached roughly a third of King Salmon households. It recorded that only five respondents reported ever having had water enter their homes in the flood-prone area. More than 40 homes have been confirmed to be significantly flooded this month.Read More
