On Tuesday, Washington State Parks announced that Lake Sylvia State Park has been closed due to the Lake Sylvia Dam showing signs of stress from the raised lake levels.

Out of precaution, the city of Montesano City Forest is also closed to public access. Subsequently, Grays Harbor County Emergency Management announced that Lake Sylvia State Park had been closed. According to the press release issued by State Parks, “Crews are continuously monitoring the dam and at this time there are no visual structural changes.”

At Tuesday night’s Montesano City Council meeting, Hannah Cleverly, deputy director of emergency management with Grays Harbor County, provided an update on the Lake Sylvia Dam Emergency Action Plan. Earlier this summer, based on the dam’s stability, the action plan was updated with new thresholds related to flooding

“What essentially has transpired over the last 24 hours is the excessive amount of rainfall has put the lake up to a high level,” Cleverly said. “The pressure could cause some instability in the dam. (The dam) is being monitored by on-scene state patrol staff, additionally remotely via a gauge that they have access to and now (staff) in our emergency operations center have access to as well.”

On Monday night, following consultation with Grays Harbor Emergency Management, State Parks and Montesano staff, Police Chief Robert Wilson went door-to-door, notifying residents that the dam was experiencing stress. There are nine parcels in the inundation zone should the worst-case scenario of dam failure occur.

And early Tuesday morning, when the Level 3 emergency threshold was reached, a Grays Harbor County emergency alert regarding the dam was sent to 250 residents.

Montesano Fire Chief David Busz shared that the State Parks arborist and marine action teams developed a plan to remove the large dead trees and debris that blocked the spillway.

“We partnered with Monte Public Works and the entire staff came up to remove those out of the lake and put them up on higher ground,” Chief Busz said. “Once that occurred, we were watching the lake level drop by the minute. It was extraordinary to see how quickly moving that debris out [caused it to drop], and the State Parks action teams were phenomenal.”

Although there was a bit of a reprieve in rainfall yesterday, Cleverly said that an estimate of 4 to 4 1/2 inches of rain is expected over the next 48 hours. “The Grays Harbor County Emergency Operations is active at a Level 1, which is our full activation,” she said.

In response to the emergency situation, the city council unanimously passed Resolution 1031.

“Basically, it gives the mayor the authority to make all necessary actions to respond and mitigate the emergency, which is obviously deploying personnel to Lake Sylvia, like we’ve already done, and now we’re putting it on there,” Mayor Tyler Trimble said. “This also allows good and better coordination with Emergency Management, Washington State Parks, state and federal agency assistance and recovery programs down the line.”

City Forester John Bull shared that there haven’t been issues observed with the roads or culverts on the City Forest, or any slides.

“We’ll cross our fingers for the rest of the event,” he said.

Looking ahead to the rest of the week, rain is expected through Saturday.