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Mount Vernon flood wall held as officials warn of more rain; FEMA teams staged
Summary
Local and state officials said a new 1.4-mile flood wall protected downtown Mount Vernon from this week’s flooding, reported dozens of rescues but no deaths, and said federal teams are staged while officials prepare formal FEMA funding requests.
Mayor Peter Donovan said the city’s recently completed 1.4-mile flood wall was deployed in about 12 hours by city workers and ‘‘protects 225 buildings’’ in downtown Mount Vernon, lifting them out of the FEMA 100-year flood plain and cutting insurance costs by roughly 40 percent.
The wall’s effectiveness was a central focus at a press briefing where state, federal and local officials described response efforts and warned the event was not over. ‘‘The bottom line is we’re not done,’’ said Reed Wolcott, warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Seattle, who forecast an additional 4 to 7 inches of mountain rainfall in the Skagit…
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