By Hallie Golden, Photo: Ted S. Warren/AP, The Guardian, February 3, 2022
First came the heavy snow in late December that blanketed Seattle and the surrounding area. Then the torrential rain and flooding hit in early January. One by one, four of the region’s main mountain passes were deemed impassable, and a 20-mile stretch of Interstate 5 south of Seattle was closed.
It was the first time all five had been closed in more than a decade, leaving the Seattle area virtually cut off from cross-state travel.
But it was simply the latest in a series of extreme weather events that have pummeled the Pacific north-west over the past year. In the typically mild-weathered state of Washington alone, it began with heavy snowfall last February, followed by dry, scorching temperatures over the summer that left more than 100 people dead, and then a record-breaking fall rain in the Seattle area.
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