SPEAKER_01 0:00

All right, welcome back to another episode of the Is It Legit Podcast. Uh today we are unfortunately covering some um events that are happening that's affecting a lot of people in Washington and in the PNW. Uh we have a catastrophic flood happening in multiple parts of the state. Uh people are uh under people and their homes and properties are underwater, sometimes even 15 to 20 feet of water. People are being rescued from the treetops by helicopter. Uh, the entire cities and entire neighborhoods are being asked to evacuate over 100,000 people. Uh, it might sound like a movie, but it's definitely not. It's happening right now in Washington State. Um, we thought it would be good to spread some awareness and maybe talk about what is actually happening, how things might be affected in the future, uh, long term and short term, and also what we can do about this and what we will be doing. So, Peter, do you want to start us off with some facts?

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Yeah, I mean, I first of all, I'm surprised that we don't have more coverage around this. I mean, it seems like, you know, when the Hawaii fires happened, uh, there was a lot more national coverage. I I saw it here and there in like ABC news and whatnot, but um, I don't know if people understand like how how serious it is out here. I mean, there's people like we know that are affected. I've been looking on my Facebook, and people I'm seeing people like with their having inflatable boats trying to get to their house, and their whole downstairs is just all flooded.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Yeah, I've I've seen posts of people um essentially calling their neighbors for help, people using their kayaks to deliver food and supplies. I mean, it's just crazy. And a lot of these homes are older, you know, with basements and um it's a really bad situation.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

And being in real estate, understanding what that level of water does to a house and how much it degrades it, right? It's like I I don't know how they're going to repair that, right? You have these older homes with older wood that's just getting you know drenched in and and uh water that will affect the the structural integrity of their home, right? Unless you reframe it, which uh is not cheap. Um and so it makes me wonder how is insurance going to repair this? Is it are we gonna be another Florida type of situation where they I mean they should have their own separate flood insurance, but is our are flooding premiums going to sorry, are our insurance premiums going to go up uh because insurance companies are now having to dish out so much money in a event that totally broke records in terms of this, you know, people were expecting the hundred-year flood, you hear about that or 500-year flood. It's not supposed to flood in five or a hundred years, yet it happened four times. And so is it really a hundred years? So anyway, it's just um crazy, and we were not prepared.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Yeah, and just to uh just before you start on the stats, um so there is that idea. So in in our business, we know a lot about floodplains, we know a lot about soils, we know about uh previous floods that have happened in history that can affect the soil condition. Um, and the concept of a hundred or five hundred-year old floodplain is that it's supposed to flood once every a hundred years, statistically, or five hundred years. Yeah. Uh but like you said, that's obviously not accurate all the time. And for people who live in, let's say, Mount Vernon near the river, uh, we've sold homes where you're you have to get flood insurance. It's another two to three thousand a year. And will they discontinue that? Will they pay out on it? I mean, that's a huge thing that I'm personally concerned about. So so yeah, definitely. Let's talk about some facts.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Yeah, so 16 inches of rain fell in the Cascades over the uh over just three days in Skaggit River, which is near Mount Vernon. For those of you guys who don't live in Washington, you know, this is um uh a major river that we have uh in Washington, and it hit a record of 37.7 feet. That's massive, smashing the 1990 record. Over 1,200 rescues in 10 counties. They were plucking people from treetops, they literally were like holding on to trees and just holding on for dear life, and people had to rescue them from there because you know that was the only way. Um, and so it's insane stuff, movie type of stuff. Over 100,000 uh vacu uh evacuation orders, just like you said. Uh 20 plus highways closed. 20. I mean 20. Well that's it's crazy across 11 counties. Highway two is a major highway for us. We have highway two, we have I-90. I mean, these are ways to go east in Washington, and um they're you know, they could be closed for months. So I actually saw the the video because you know, obviously the the the water went to the dirt and the dirt started uh eroding because of the water, the the uh road, the um concrete all just fell apart, and and you can't you can't get through. And so uh because it could be closed for months, I mean that could be four million dollars a day until these things get fixed. Um, and so it's a very serious uh condition. Um there was one, this is recent, a confirmed death. Um, man drove past barriers barriers into floodwaters, and uh he he did die. And so maybe there's not more coverage because there's not as many many deaths. I don't I don't know, but it's just there's definitely a lot of damage to a lot of properties.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

I feel like I'm seeing much well, to be fair, I don't watch the news too often because it's uh it's a whole nother podcast, but uh I I I'm just seeing it on social media more than anything, and I'm just randomly scrolling and then I just get hit with this crazy and it's places that you and I have been to. I can remember like driving past this area or having sold homes in this area, or like I just sold a property in Pierce County in Roy, right? Yeah, um, and yeah, like you said, four million dollars of lost revenue per day. That's crazy, and it makes sense because you're not able to get to places, you have people having to reroute, traffic is crazy everywhere, right? I mean, just getting into I5 now is just like crazy, yeah. Um, but yeah, it's really, really bad.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

So let's talk about the atmospheric river. Um, because this is what is causing these floods. And so uh you can kind of go through the key points. Um, this is the the AI version of the description, because I'm I'm always trying to figure out like what the heck is the atmosphere river? What does that even mean? It doesn't really make sense. And it says, imagine a fire hose in the sky, uh, 300 plus miles, that's massive wide, pumping tropical moisture 7,000 miles from near the Philippines directly into Washington. It's it's it's a fire hose just pumping water into uh our rivers, and that's the atmospheric river. Um, I believe it's raining right now, and it's gonna continue to rain, it's gonna continue to get worse. So um, yeah, tell me a little bit about some of the key points.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

So um it's happened before, it's been called the Pineapple Express when it's come from near Hawaii. So I think you're probably pulling from the equatorial areas where there's a lot of moisture. Maybe it's it, I don't know how it comes here, but it does. It's rated on a one to five scale, like hurricanes. Um, so five being the most crazy and one being the least crazy. Washington got hit by category four and five. Uh, normally a couple of times a year is manageable, but we had three major hits back to back to back uh since December 8th, which I mean, today's what the 15th or whatever, the 16th. Um, and another thing is groundwater is saturated. So if it rained and the groundwater is saturated, we've seen this on different properties we've sold also, where it literally the water has nowhere else to go, and you just pour it into a you know, like water pouring into a cup, it'll go tabletop and then it'll go over, and obviously it has to go somewhere, so it goes downstream into people's houses, depressions inland. Um and there's actually uh what's called GIS maps online that people can look up to see what the low level depressions are. If you guys are ever concerned, you can just type in GIS map per county, King County, Snohomish Pierce. Um but it's basically a warmer atmosphere holding more water and it dumps as rain instead of snow, I guess because it's not cold enough. Yeah, because that actually explains why, because we didn't actually get hit by like tons and tons and tons of rain, but I guess it's more up in the mountains that's dumping into the rivers and yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

I mean, we it for a while, even in our house, it was really, really pouring. And I I remember telling my wife uh when I looked outside, I was like, there's like raining, and we've I mean we're from Washington, guys, like we understand what rain looks like, but there was a moment where I opened the door, I was like, what the heck is going on? This is a crazy amount of rain, and this is here. Yeah, this is not in the mountains. I can't imagine what happened in the mountains. Uh I can't imagine it was probably like apocalyptic.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

Can you imagine being up there? I mean, that's crazy. And the with the winds, and yeah, I mean, this really kind of talks to at least me about getting you know prepared for stuff like this. You know, I just bought uh Jackery, the battery, right? I think you bought one and then I bought one. Yeah. And I immediately started thinking, like, what do we have at home? You know, so maybe maybe we can talk about that too. But yeah, why don't we talk about that at the end? Um, so damage implications for Washington. Um, so we talked about i5 cost i5 closures costing us four million dollars per day. Um, you mentioned the highway two closure could last for months. That's that's crazy because that's skiing, that's Leavenworth, that's economies and communities.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Tons of businesses out on the east side. Tons. I mean, I I I don't even know how many businesses and and and homeowners.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Yeah. Um, I mean, there's like a string of towns, you know, from Monroe, it's you know, for people who don't live here, it's just Highway 2 is actually considered one of the most dangerous highways, if not the most dangerous highway apparently in the in the US because of how narrow it is and how far up and down it goes into mountain uh uh like the mountains, um, and it's very fragile.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

So what about the people who went past and can't get back?

SPEAKER_01 11:31

Yeah, they have to go I-90 all the way, but then now that there's traffic because I-90 is also shut down partially from what you researched, yeah, yeah, yeah. Man, that's it. Um I just I hate traffic. It's just it and then also multiple levees and dams are now at risk of failure, so that's scary. And um, I know that there's literally people that are being displaced into um shelters, and you know, people are housing other people. There's like food drives, clothing drives, which you know we're gonna definitely do something about, um, because we should. But yeah, that's some of the uh infrastructure impact.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

Yeah. In 2007, there was apparently Washington floods. Do you remember this?

SPEAKER_01 12:19

There was this is the year I came in 2008.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Oh, okay, got it. Um I don't I mean, I was here, I don't really remember. Maybe I was too young, but um apparently it was like 500 plus million in damages. And these the full damages, and we don't know exactly how bad it is. Back then it was 500 million. I think this one was worse. Uh so and that was 500 million in you know, be pre-inflation. And so what are the damages now? 500 million, dude? Like that's that's not crazy. Yeah, that is a lot, but that's not a lot, you know. It's it's crazy. And then, you know, our state has 1.6 billion dollars in rainy day funds that is 100% going to be used, and so if the damages are really as bad, like again, we're still flooding and it's going to get worse, guys. And what if we don't have enough money? And what if another catastrophic event happens? So I don't know if you've been watching um the the the various news, but apparently we have blizzards coming, apparently we have wind advisory. I don't know if you've heard of that. Apparently, there's been like um tremors for earthquakes. Oh, geez. Uh so okay. So I I I don't I don't really know. Um, and then it's like, okay, maybe the federal government will take care of us, but you know, how much money do they have right now, you know, to to do stuff? Because there's I mean, Florida's still damaged. There's there's been uh other, there's been flooding in I I think other areas too around around the uh uh America. And so how much money do they have? What happens when the money runs out? What happens if the help runs out? What if what what what if FEMA runs out of people and resources? What if the National Guards, you know, all used up, right? Um, what do we do, man?

SPEAKER_01 14:22

That reminds me of a Hurricane Katrina. I mean, this is like when we were kids, but and I can't remember exactly where it happened, but I think it's the south or southeast, and it's just like they were just stranded for days because help couldn't get to them, it was gridlocked, it was so crazy. And if you're talking about like you know, FEMA and the National Guard and all this stuff, it's like how are they if all these things hit at once, we're gonna be displaced. There's people not only that's been evacuated but losing power. Um, we have 400k, 400,000 people plus or families have lost power. That's just a lot, and it just shows how fragile we really are. You know, we live in this bubble and we think we're this and that, but something like this happens. And I mean, if you see the pictures and videos of this stuff, it's pretty crazy.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

It's in yeah, it's it's really like it doesn't seem real, but it is totally real. Um, oh, by the way, super something super messed up that's happening is people are getting looted in their homes. These guys who just lost mostly everything and are in a crisis situation, there are horrible people out there right now who are going out there in boats. I mean, this is I mean, this is not just driving by, they're going out in in well, not like sometimes rowboats or or maybe maybe small motorboats going into people's homes stealing stuff from their houses. I mean, because obviously they they can, they can go in and there's no one to stop you, right? Unless they have another boat and then you can just speed away. It's it's so messed up, right? Um, yeah, desperate times. Desperate times. Again, it seems apocalyptic. Let's talk about the government. What is the government doing? So, what is our federal government doing about this?

SPEAKER_01 16:13

Okay, so President Trump signed an emergency declaration uh just a couple days ago. Uh FEMA um got deployed, and they're establishing a communications hub in Bafo, which is very close to us. Uh, federal government apparently covers 75% of eligible disaster costs, which I did not know about. Um, 16 counties plus tribal nations covered under declaration, which is I want to say most, if not all, of Washington state. And we are working toward more major disaster declaration. That's the federal and then the state uh response is so Governor Ferguson declared statewide emergency, obviously. Washington National Guard deployed, uh, over 300 plus members assisting. So everybody who's helping with that, I mean, my heart definitely goes out to you guys. Um, 3.5 million in emergency funds released. Uh I mean, it just seems so little, but I guess they're maybe stepping it to the people and the entities that need it. Um now we have cash benefits assistance programs, and there's just more disaster relief being um being poured out.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

Yeah. Senator Chris Gildan um said that, well, essentially he said we don't know uh how bad this actually is. Um they said that some levees like Green River, so Green River also flooded, there's been a lot of issues there, weren't repaired from damage four years ago. So that tells you where is that? I I don't know where that is. Uh Green River, I believe it's south. Um, I forget exactly where it is. It's like Auburn or Kent or one of those south areas. Yeah. But uh the Green River goes through all of that. Um okay, so here's a question in a lot of people's minds will it get worse? Um and the answer is yes. More atmospheric rivers are coming. Um, second and third storms hit this week, December 17th. What today's the 18th, right? So they could be hitting right now. Um, rivers that briefly receded are surging back up. Okay, so I'm sorry if that's like disappointing news for a lot of you guys or anybody who is uh affected. Landslide risks remain extremely high as well. So the long-term climate picture, um, this is a new normal. A uh climatologist um says more intense river flooding is expected in the future, and it's because of the warmer air, more moisture, heavy, heavier rain, less snow, more rain, faster runoffs into the rivers. And so hundred-year floods in uh on the Skagit uh could increase volume in volume by 50% by 2080. Um that's that's a shocking statistic, which I think will change a lot of build areas and also flood insurance. I mean, some of these again, how is this gonna work? Are some of these homes even going to be able to stay? Because if flood insurance gets so ridiculously high, and if you you don't have insurance, you won't be in you won't be able to get financed, if it gets so high, then you're not gonna, you know, be able to live. And that's kind of what happened to Florida. So this is this is kind of my biggest concern. Like right now, probably everyone's just uh in emergency mode. But what happens if you know, once all this settled and done, that the insurance companies just say, Hey, I'm sorry, um, this is gonna be another Florida moment. Uh, you you you can't stay there, and then all these guys will be displaced, they won't be able, they won't be able to sell their houses. Who's gonna buy that home?

SPEAKER_01 20:02

Right, yeah, you see what I'm saying? Or it's uninsurable, and in our business, if something is uninsurable, then a lender won't take it because why would they, right? Thus tanking the values, if if not yeah, I don't there will be no value. I mean, I don't that's a and then you know, we've learned this lesson um through other experiences. So when you're talking about, so remember we tried to we looked at so many years ago, but we looked at a property in one of the valleys near Snohomish, where we were trying to build a tiny home village. And one of the things that we ran into is that there's no viable land because it's there's Lenar homes here, there's you know, DR Horton here, everybody's taking up these big swaths of land, and in land development, everything's like on a 10-year thing, like you can hold land in Duval for 10 years and then develop it. Well, there's only the only land that's kind of left is these maybe farmlands that have to be converted, maybe um uh land that is downhill or in a valley or in a depression. And this is exactly why we actually could not make this work because we could not convert that agricultural land, which was literally like in the valley, to a tiny home village for this purpose. And this is where this is why we think knowing where to choose your property is so important, like location is everything, right? And unfortunately, people can only afford homes in certain areas because that's only that that's where where else are you gonna go, right? So it's a problem that's systematic, and I hope that everybody who's listening can maybe think about what they can do without, maybe what they can you know do to give. I know that we are talking. Talking about something like that, and unfortunately it will get worse. And I hope that you know people are able to stay safe and um you know sane.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

Yeah. I think for all the Washingtonians, along with you know, people outside, uh, it just I I hope you know this is very serious. This is very serious stuff. If you look at Sumas, um, is I don't know how if that's how you pronounce it, but if you look at some of these areas, I mean, we're talking serious, serious damages, like like whole areas being completely flooded. And I just again, like, I this should be everywhere. I mean, people should be on the ground. Uh, you know, hopefully we can uh help as many people as possible during these times, but I mean, this stuff is like catastrophic apocalyptic type of things. It may not affect us because fortunately we live kind of Mokotia is kind of on a hill. Um, but there's a lot of people who are really struggling, and I I don't think we understand how bad it this is until things start settling down and realizing, oh my gosh, the amount of damages this this has made. And so I hope you guys know that this is a serious thing, and we encourage you guys to help as much as you can for these people who uh have been affected because um people may think if you don't live in Washington, you may think, oh well, Washingtonians are rich, and so they're not really affected. No, not all Washingtonians are rich. Uh, a lot of the rich people are are people who are in tech, and uh a lot of their homes did not get affected. And so there's a lot of people outside of the tech world who are just normal, average, hardworking citizens, and unfortunately, they've been severely affected by some of these uh floods. And so let's let's really help, you know, let's let's let's find ways to volunteer, let's uh give, you know, do a food drive or try to, you know, uh house if you have a friend who's been affected, you know, maybe house them for a couple of days, if they have a family just for a little bit, um, because hotel costs are really expensive. Like, what are these guys doing, right? There's no free hotel, they're gonna have to pay. And the economy is already tough. So that would be my biggest encouragement for people.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

So I have looked into this a little bit. Um, I thought, you know, what I what can I do to help? Can I go volunteer? So I started Googling um different organizations. So if you uh type in, you know, your area or county and disaster relief or how can I help, you'll run into all of these, you know, like the Seattle Times published something that compiles, you know, the YMCAs, the Red Cross, all you know, United Way, all these people you can give uh money, obviously, so that they know what to do and what to buy and and things like that. Uh, they're also doing a lot of food and clothing drives for people who are affected, obviously, right? Who are in cafeterias or schools or some disp, you know, communities or whatever, churches, I'm I'm guessing. Um, and then yeah, if uh be active on social media because somebody might be actively asking for help through Facebook or you know, whatever. Um, and I think this is the time where counter blessings because um for anybody who did not get hit, including us, we're very grateful. And one last thing is this is also a really good time to take stock of some of your emergency supplies. We have talked about this quite a bit. We have started on the journey um of gathering things. What if you know there's an extended power outage like just a few months ago, right? Some people in Bellevue, like Bellevue, you know, the tech city, um, we're out of we're without power for like five to six days. Yeah. And that's your food's gone. I mean, you're not you're cold at night. Some people don't have gas for heating, so it's electric, and that's all gone. So maybe have some stuff, maybe have a little power generator, a battery, uh, maybe some water, maybe some clothing, just some emergency supplies. YouTube is your best friend. Look up those things. But I think it's a good reminder to be a bit more prepared mentally and physically.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

Yeah, I I it doesn't hurt. I mean, it does hurt. I mean, obviously, we're in a tough economy, and any extra money is is just rough. But if you can get your hands on some canned food, if you can get your hands on, you know, something that can hold you over for at least um a week, at least a week, I think it would be smart, especially during these times. I mean, we have like old age, a very archaic infrastructure uh in some of these dams. And what happens if the I mean, that's a huge part of our our our energy supply. What happens if that gets cut off for a long time and your local convenience store or QFC food store is closed? What happens if we have a blizzard, which they say that that that's gonna happen? We're gonna have have blizzards. What's gonna happen if we have a prolonged winter? Our infrastructure is not ready for stuff like that, right? We're not Minnesota, and so I I it as much as it hurts, I think it's worth it. Go go get some more supplies, be prepared uh for the worst, and I think it'll be you know, it could save you guys. Um, you know, especially in uh times like these where we're very vulnerable and we don't have um as many resources as we may thought we have thought.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

So yeah, well, any other thoughts? Um, I don't know, sell things if you don't have money. I mean, whatever it is. If you have a family, yeah. Especially if you have kids, I mean you have a wife. I mean, people are looting because they're not prepared and because it's the shock of I mean, people desperate times, you know, call for desperate measures, and um, it's really unfortunate, but again, it just reminds me to be grateful and uh to be helpful as much as we can. Um, and just try to be prepared. Have something in your house. If it's one thing a month you get with some extra cash, so be it. Yeah, get a water purifier, get a little portable battery so your food doesn't go to waste. Little things like that, I think, can really help.

SPEAKER_00 28:24

Yep. Yep. Well, thank you guys for watching. Uh, thank you guys for those of you guys who don't live in Washington. We appreciate you guys caring and listening. And uh it would really help us uh if you like and subscribe. And uh please donate if you can. We we really encourage you guys to donate or help in some way. Um, we're not going to endorse some kind of organization. We just ask you guys to find an organization that you can trust and um please help. And I I hope this is where humanity really comes through. Um, because remember, life is not all about us. We live together, we live in a society as a race, and um, we're just hoping that the goodness of human um of us humans uh really comes out during these times. So thank you guys for watching, and we'll see you guys on the next episode.