Aerials from the floods
The floods that gripped Western Washington earlier this month were huge. After watching the December 2007 events unfold, I knew I wanted to try to photograph the power of these warm and wet winter storms. However, it can be difficult to capture and appreciate the significance of these events from the ground; an aerial flyby would be the way to go.
I gave LightHawk a call. This nonprofit organization has supported conservation organizations, photographers and researchers with flights for more than 30 years. They operate an international network linking projects like ours with local pilots and planes. Within less then 24 hours they had connected us with a local pilot, Val Tollefson, who agreed to take us up in his Cesna. So on January 9th we flew over the Snoqualmie, Tolt, Snohomish and Cedar rivers to photograph the remarkable flood event that was unfolding.
The Snoqualmie River crested at a record flood stage early Thursday morning, breaking the 2006 record. On Friday, we took off from Bremerton, flew over Puget Sound up to Everett and then worked our way south down the Snoqualmie Valley. In some of these photos the water had already dropped four or five feet from the crest. After a couple more passes, and a short side trip to Snoqualmie Pass, we returned to Bremerton National.
In the days following our flight we were able to collect additional images of people and hear stories from the same locations on the ground. We’ll post more on that soon. A big thank you to Val and Christine from LightHawk for their generosity, quick response and making this remarkable trip possible.