SEATTLE — It's been a long year for those who live in Seattle's South Park community.
"We just got our whole house back. The basement was unusable and under construction for nine full months," said resident Jill Reese.
Reese and Andy Cenarrusa spoke with KING 5 last December when the bottom half of their house flooded after a King Tide overtopped the Duwamish River.
Now, the Puget Sound area is a week away from the first of three King Tides of the season. "It's hard to imagine that we're ever going to go back to a place where there isn't a big risk of being under water every year," said Reese.
Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) and King County's Wastewater Treatment Division said they've completed major fixes ahead of this wet season, starting with a more robust sandbag wall.
"This is our temporary solution that protects our community in the short term while we work on a longer term solution," said Seattle Public Utilities Deputy Director Ellen Stewart.
Twenty-four grinder pumps were also added to prevent sewage from coming back up into homes along with 4,000 linear feet of public storm drain.
"It's going to do its job, the only question is how intense are the storms that are coming and can we manage up to those intensity levels?" said Jason Sharpley who is a project manager at SPU.
A new South Park Pump Station is officially online to make sure it all runs smoothly.
"It's actually pumping out 32,000 gallons per minute when all four pumps are working," said Wan-Yee Kuo who is the project manager for the South Park Pump Station.
According to the city, all of these solutions working together can reduce the flooding, but it won’t completely stop the flooding.
“The scope of this problem is way bigger than one city corporation should be handling. Where’s FEMA? Where’s the state?” said Cenarrusa.
SPU said it is in the planning stages to create more fixes. “This has been an underserved community for many years and we’re trying to right that wrong and prepare them for the future,” said Stewart.
While residents Cenarrusa and Reese said the city has been integral in helping them rebuild, there is still fear that it’ll happen again.
"We’re watching the weather and they told us how to look at the tide charts and all this stuff. But at the end of the day, we can’t pick up our house," Reese said. "If the water comes in, it comes in and we’re right back in the spot we were."
The completed improvements along with some smaller projects cost $76 million. The specific improvements discussed in this article were $61 million, according to SPU. The next King Tide is expected to hit western Washington Tuesday, Nov. 28.