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South Park navigates king tides

The City of Seattle said they're working on a long-term solution for these king tides and today the water stayed below the banks.

SEATTLE — The streets are dry and the sandbags at the ready in South Park. Even though Monday's king tide stayed within the banks of the Duwamish, businesses like West Coast Wire Rope & Rigging said the orange barriers are staying put.

"Oh, absolutely. We have another King Tide tomorrow and one the next day," said Purchasing Director Michael Lumsden who has seen a lot of flooding in his 31 years on the job.

"I've seen it more over the past seven to 10 years than I've seen it the entire time I've been here, so I definitely think it's the new norm," said Lumsden.

In the future, rising sea levels could lead to flooding problems more frequently during high tides, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

"They experience the flooding throughout the year and we could see more frequent, more intense storms. So we want the short-term solutions in place and we want to think about what to do long term," said Public Information Officer for Seattle Public Utilities Sabrina Register.

Spanning nearly a mile and a half of barriers, now the question is: what happens to the 90,000 sandbags lining the neighborhood?

"We're figuring things out right now, whether we're leaving things in place, what that next step is. We know that there is another king tide forecasted next month, it's too early to see what that will look like," said Register.

December's flood waters are still etched into many people's minds. West Coast Wire Rope & Rigging lost two transformers.

"I'd say we're probably in the tens of thousands of dollars. We haven't really evaluated all of our inventory yet, a lot of it was sitting on the floor," said Lumsden.

Now they're making long-term changes for this new norm. 

"We've got all of this stuff on pallets. We raised it up as far as we can get it," said Lumsden.

The king tide coming in on Tuesday is projected to be higher than Monday's, but nowhere close to overtopping the river.

 Watch: What are king tides?

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