Heavy snow and cold struck Asotin County during late January 1996, but in early February the weather turned warm and wet. A series of mild Pacific storms caused heavy rain to fall on a frozen snowpack, and the combination of rain and snowmelt was too much for some of the county’s rivers and streams.
On Wednesday, February 7, flooding began on both Asotin Creek in the town of Asotin as well as along the Grande Ronde River in extreme southeastern Asotin County, near the Oregon border.
One local resident told the Lewiston Tribune that he’d been watching trailers and fuel tankers floating down the Grande Ronde not far from his ranch. Another area resident, Dr. William Bond, watched the Snake River Road as it crumbled into the Grande Ronde. The Tribune reported that Bond had lost 50 pigs and 300 piglets from his ranch to the flood, but Bond wasn’t thinking about evacuating: “We can always climb the mountain if we have to.”
The tiny town of Rogersburg, just south of the Grande Ronde, simply evacuated its handful of residents on the 7th as the Grande Ronde reached flood stage. The river flooded the Snake River Road to a depth of three feet just west of Hellar Bar near Rogersburg, cutting off the tiny town to land traffic for at least three days and requiring people to access the town by boat.
Farther north, parts of the western end of the town of Asotin (population 1,096) flooded. Asotin Creek, which runs along the western edge of the town before emptying into the Snake River, flooded over the top of its levee. The creek threatened two homes and briefly flowed into the city’s sewer system, but aggressive sandbagging by high school students prevented further damage and also helped limit damage to the town itself.
Asotin Park was not so fortunate. The creek spread into the park, filling picnic shelters with debris and destroying playground equipment, and leaving a blanket of boulders in its wake.
At Asotin High School ducks were reported swimming in the football field at the height of the flood. State Route 129, the main north-south artery through Asotin County, was closed by slides from Anatone south to Enterprise, Oregon. Buford Creek completely washed out a 300-yard section of the highway at the bottom of Rattlesnake Grade.
To the west, an entire two-mile section of Troy Road (which parallels the Grande Ronde River) was washed out between State Route 129 and Troy, Oregon. It was in this area that the greatest flood damage occurred. "The volume of the water and the magnitude of the destruction was just incredible," said Douglas W. Mattoon, Asotin County public works director (Lewiston Tribune). Numerous other county and state roads were damaged and closed for several days in Asotin County.
The floodwaters peaked in Asotin County on February 8 and 9. The USGS data gauge just below Kearney Gulch (five miles upstream from Asotin Creek’s mouth on the Snake River) showed Asotin Creek’s flow peaked at 1,800 cubic feet per second on February 8 -- only half of its peak reached during a large flood in January 1974, but still high enough to flood parts of the western end of the town of Asotin.
The Grande Ronde River peaked at three-and-a-half feet over flood stage just over the state line in Troy, Oregon, at 2 p.m. on February 9. The crest of the flood crossed the state line into Asotin County soon after, and then moved down the river to its mouth on the Snake River.
By Saturday, February 10, the rain had stopped and floodwaters retreated fairly quickly. Some parts of the Grande Ronde near Rogerburg remained flooded that Saturday, but by Sunday the rivers were back in their banks and the cleanup began.
President Clinton approved a federal disaster declaration for Asotin County as well as numerous surrounding counties in Oregon and Idaho. Damage to county roads was estimated at $3.2 million in Asotin County, but this figure does not include damage to state roads or private property.
Most of the damage was repaired within six months, with the exception of Asotin Park, which remained closed through August 1997.
