Is The Skagit River Getting Ready To Test Mount Vernon's New Flood Wall?

Two days after Thanksgiving the Skagit River is in flood mode.

In the photo that would be my great nephew, Spencer Jack, and an un-identified girl friend playing in the Skagit River, which is currently flooding Lion's Park at the north end of Mount Vernon's downtown.

I do not know if the Skagit is expected to reach a flood level high enough to trigger the first test of Mount Vernon's new flood wall.

For some reason I thought Lion's Park was also protected by the new flood wall. Clearly I was in error.

This would appear to be, currently, a very mild flood.

I remember a Thanksgiving Weekend Flood of the Skagit River, back in the last decade of the previous century. Hundreds of people, including the National Guard, worked through the night to build a sand bag flood wall to save downtown Mount Vernon from a record breaking flood.

But, just as the river began to crest, with a huge crowd on high ground watching the expected calamity, suddenly, just as the river began  to go over the wall of sand bags, it dropped a foot. A miraculous Act of God? I'm sure that is what some thought.

But soon sirens began wailing and the news spread that the Skagit River dike had breached downriver from downtown Mount Vernon, flooding Fir Island with a catastrophic wall of water.

When the flood subsided the breach was repaired. And then two weeks later it happened again. Another record breaking flood.

I hope Mount Vernon's new flood wall does what it is expected to do, which is keep downtown Mount Vernon dry.