Extensive flooding has affected thousands of Oregonians in the Willamette Valley this week.
This week’s flooding led us to think back to other significant floods in Oregon’s history.
In early 1996 flooding led to several deaths, property damage and the destruction of businesses.
Eighteen Oregon counties declared a state of emergency and more than 20,000 people were evacuated. In 2016, The Oregonian published a 20-year anniversary story that detailed the historic nature of the flooding.
This KGW archive video features reports from a TV special showing the flooding throughout Oregon and Southwest Washington.
“These should normally be streets, not rivers, not canals, but streets. The entire town. The entire main residential core of Woodland, Washington, is underwater today because of the high waters on the Lewis River,” one reporter described the scene.
You can also watch a short clip of the Christmas flood of 1964: