On Thursday, Feb. 6, 2020, the Umatilla River in Pendleton was trying to handle a record-breaking 28,900 cubic feet per second of water through our city. Compare this to the previous highest flow in Pendleton — 15,500 cfs in 1965. The result was heavy flooding on both the far eastern and western ends of town.

Fortunately, in the main area of town, the levees held back the water with only a few exceptions. In the eastern Riverside neighborhood, flood waters raged through a residential area, across Highway 11, and into a commercial neighborhood. A major 12-inch sewer line was washed out, requiring immediate repair.

More than 270 homes in Pendleton were damaged, some completely destroyed, and several businesses suffered major flood damage. In the west, the powerful flood waters tore through the levees that protected two large factories, flooding them, and then tore more holes in the levees on the way downstream. The city’s wastewater treatment plant was threatened and, fortunately, the levees there just barely survived.

Pendleton responded quickly. Our public safety, public works, and parks and recreation employees coordinated with the county and the Oregon Department of Transportation to restrict travel in dangerous areas and to identify those needing emergency assistance. An Emergency Operations Center was established and agencies from across the state began to arrive to help.

The Pendleton Convention Center became home to displaced individuals. The Red Cross put out a call for volunteers, and in the first day more than 60 people arrived, as did charitable donations of food and clothing. The Community Action Program for Eastern and Central Oregon (CAPECO) was on hand, helping people who needed temporary housing.

When the flood waters receded by Sunday, Feb. 9, dozens of volunteers and Pendleton city employees were in the affected neighborhoods helping to clean up the roads and assess the damages. Hundreds of tons of debris were removed. Other volunteers from national groups arrived to help, and many of these volunteers stayed here for more than a week.

The damage to the western end of Pendleton was heavy. The final cost of repairing the levees was about $2.2 million. The two damaged factories, Keystone RV and Cor-Tek (formerly Colby Pipe) were closed for months.

On Monday, Feb. 10, leaders from Pendleton and Umatilla County were in Salem meeting with the Gov. Kate Brown and her staff to request assistance. The governor quickly came to tour the flood aftermath and promised to help. By mid-March, the Oregon Legislature approved millions of dollars in assistance from the state’s Emergency Board, money that was desperately needed to repair the levees, provide temporary housing and help low-income families get into affordable housing.

A year later, the recovery is still underway.

Final levee repairs in Pendleton were just completed in January. A major bridge in the county was lost and has not been rebuilt. A number of flood victims simply left town. The city is still working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to get reimbursed for some of the expenses related to the crisis. A plan to build about 80 units of affordable housing in Pendleton is moving forward, with construction scheduled to begin this summer. The CTUIR is using disaster assistance funding to provide affordable housing units on the reservation.

While the levees inside the Pendleton city limits are sound, miles of levees in the county need work. Needless to say, it will take years to fully recover from the damages of this historic flood.

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