Aaron Dunlap started Friday morning with his car stuck in sand and a fish stuck in the dirt outside his cannabis farm. Dunlap is one of many people stuck digging themselves out today after landslides and flash floods near Twisp, Washington.
“The road washed out, and the creek flooded and turned into a giant river on the backside of our property,” Dunlap said. “So really just water all around you in just two minutes.”
Heavy rains triggered flooding on hills and ranches left charred by the Carlton Complex wildfire.
State Road 20 and State Road 153 south of Twisp remain closed in both directions. The Washington Department of Transportation has no estimate for when they may be reopened.
Friday morning Patrick Fitzgerald was using a chainsaw to dig his trailer out of mud on his four-acre property after a flash flood. "It's wiped out a bunch of my plum trees and it's eaten away the road halfway right now," he said. "It's what happens when water runs."
The National Weather Service said storms this evening could dump more water on areas burned by the fires in central Washington. But it's unclear what that could mean for people already digging out of last night's mudslides.
“With regard to the weather, we can't say exactly where the storm cell is going to go. So therefore we can't predict exactly where any flooding will occur,” Okanogan County emergency manager Scott Miller said.
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Northwest News Network Correspondent Jessica Robinson contributed to this report.
