The Washington State Department of Transportation will place about 660 giant sandbags along a short stretch of Highway 167 shoulders in Kent to protect the road in case of Green River flooding.
Crews should finish on Saturday lining sandbags on a roughly 1,100-foot stretch of the highway’s northbound and southbound shoulders, just north of South 277th Street near Kent. Workers have installed a concrete barrier between the road lanes and the sandbags to prevent vehicles from striking the bags.
The concrete barrier and sandbags take up about 8 feet of the 10-foot wide shoulders along the road. The sandbags are wrapped in a black plastic to protect the bags from rain as well as from ultraviolet rays.
“Even if the water goes over the levees, the sandbags will keep Highway 167 open longer than otherwise,” said Pat Moylan, a DOT maintenance manager. “The bags are capable of handling a couple of feet of water.”
The elevation of Highway 167 gradually declines from South 277th Street heading north before it starts to go up again where the road crosses the river.
“We think they are pretty good,” said Moylan about the chance of Highway 167 to stay open during a flood. “Highway 167 sits pretty high. Most of the other roads in the valley would be under water before 167.”
The Green River could flood this winter because the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will not be able to store as much water as normal in the reservoir behind the Howard Hanson Dam. Corps officials discovered more than usual leakage in the abutment next to the dam after heavy rain last January.
State transportation officials used flood-scenario mapping provided by the Army Corps to determine where to place sandbags along the highway.
“It’s just a small area where water would most likely come over the highway,” Moylan said.
The flood-protection project cost the state about $100,000.
DOT operates a Kent maintenance facility in the 26600 block of the West Valley Highway. Crews already have moved about a dozen mowers and bulldozers to state facilities in Renton and Lake Geneva (near South 344th Street and Military Road) because of the Green River flood threat.
Crews will drive out about a dozen more trucks if flood warnings are issued and move maintenance operations to other sites.
Workers will place sandbags around the maintenance facility to protect the building at a cost of about $25,000.
East of Kent, state transportation officials will close Highway 18 to eastbound traffic from the Auburn/Black Diamond exit to the Southeast 304th exit from 5 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday to reinforce the bridge over the Green River in case of flooding. That project will cost the state about $35,000.
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