Rain, snowmelt bring highest streamflows in years

Deschutes County water managers, sheriff’s deputies and homeowners along Whychus Creek in the Sisters area were watching closely Sunday as rain, warmer temperatures and melting snow prompted the fast-running creek to surge over its banks in some areas.

The minor flooding put water over some driveways in the Three Creeks area south of town and prompted officials to make sand and sandbags available at City Hall in downtown Sisters for those who need them. The fast-moving creek was eating away at some backyards and other stream-side soils.

The National Weather Service dropped its flood watch for much of the High Desert at midday, but it was continued until late Sunday night for the east slopes of the Cascades, including La Pine and Sunriver, as winter officially arrived Sunday afternoon.

Sisters resident Annamarie Norman said some drivers had flooded in the Three Creeks area south of town; “it’s very close to some homes, there were people out very worried,” she told NewsChannel 21.

And winter recreationists were seeing heavy rain in the Cascade lakes, including water almost to the currently closed Cascade Lakes Highway as they passed Sparks Lake.

Deschutes County sheriff’s Sgt. Nathan Garibay, emergency services coordinator, said they were closely watching stream gauges but that by afternoon they were “pretty consistently dropping now.”

Sisters Public Works and the county Road Department had crews standing by, but Garibay said they were “cautiously optimistic” no serious damage would take place, though “people should be cautious around the localized high water.”

“Fortunately, we don’t have as much of the snowpack to melt as we would in a spring event,” Garibay said. “It does run this high periodically — it’s not an abnormal event. But it’s hitting the threshold where we watch very closely.”

Other areas of attention around the area also included Tumalo Creek, which like Whychus Creek has a steep drainage, so the floodwaters “can come on really fast,” Garibay said.

The rainfall tapered off in Bend but to the west came on strong; the NWS Mesonet rain gauge at the Bend watershed at Tumalo Creek reported 7.27 inches in just 24 hours as of Sunday afternoon. Three Creeks Meadow recorded 3.8 inches, Tumalo Ridge had 1.72 inches, Powell Butte .44 of an inch and Round Mountain 2.2 inches.

Garibay said later Sunday that while Whychus Creek was falling, Tumalo Creek was still rising and being watched closely.

Deschutes Basin Watermaster Jeremy Giffin told NewsChannel 21 on Monday they were monitoring flows through the weekend, “and it appears all of the rivers and creeks in the basin have peaked, with the exception of the Little Deschutes, which is still rising. However, I do not anticipate it getting too high.”

“Whychus Creek in Sisters was our biggest concern and preliminarily appears to be a higher event than we have seen in about a dozen years,” Giffin wrote.

“Crooked River into Prineville Reservoir also peaked (Monday) morning at around 5,000 cubic feet per second, which again is about an event we see every five years or so.”

Considering the impressive 7.27 inches of rain in the Bend watershed in 24 hours, Giffin said, “I am surprised Tumalo Creek did not go any higher. However, it may have been higher. Since our gauge on the creek is only a few years old at the new site, we do not have an accurate rating at the site (yet).