In Dec. 2025, major floods struck a large portion of western Washington. These floods were among the worst the region has ever seen, and thousands of people were forced to evacuate their homes and businesses. One person died due to the extreme flooding.
The floods were caused by numerous compounding factors, but mainly by a large atmospheric river, which is a long band of moisture in the atmosphere. It carries water vapor and warm air from tropical regions to the poles, accounting for much of the precipitation on the West Coast. The increased precipitation from the large atmospheric river caused heavy flooding, which was exacerbated by the failure of several levees along the Green River and the White River.
Duvall, situated in northeast King County, was one of the places heavily impacted by the floods. All the major roads leading in and out of Duvall were flooded by Dec. 9, 2025, leaving the region impassable. Luke Eckert (he/him), Duvall’s emergency management coordinator, is in charge of facilitating communication between departments during emergencies.
“For the most part, the flood waters don’t directly affect Duvall. What does affect Duvall is we turn into an island,” Eckert said. “One of the jokes I was saying during it was that we were no longer the city of Duvall – we were the island of Duvall because 203 North and South closed, Woodinville-Duvall closes and 124 goes across the valley floor and that closes. So we’re an island, so limited resources.”
This isolation left people stranded inside Duvall, including several who didn’t live there. Eckert’s department helped coordinate location and communication efforts to help those people and oversaw the organization of a temporary shelter, which was eventually established in a local church.
“We had an Uber driver drop somebody off right before the road closed, and he got stuck in Duvall. There was a delivery truck driver, a couple buses got stuck over here,” Eckert said. “Managing sheltering and supplies for those people to be able to stay safely in Duvall is really impactful.”
The city’s isolation made this management task even more difficult. Since floodwater blocked all of the major roads, outside organizations like FEMA and the Red Cross were unable to get resources to people within Duvall.
“In a situation like this, normally, we would ask for Red Cross assistance,” Eckert said. “However, when the valley is flooded and we’re an island, the Red Cross can’t feasibly get here with the supplies to do that. So we fall back on our community partners.”
Community organizations like churches and the Carnation-Duvall Civilian Corps Council stepped in by building shelters and providing immediate relief to people who were stranded in Duvall overnight. Eckert emphasized the importance of individual preparedness in natural disasters like flooding, especially as the government’s focus shifts to recovery efforts.
“Be prepared and be educated on and take interest in what natural disasters and hazards we’re exposed to in this region, and talk with your neighbors, talk with your friends, talk with your family about it, and have plans for what to do during these kinds of events,” Eckert said. “Flooding is known and predictable for the most part, within a large enough time that people can get warning, but a lot of the disasters we’re exposed to are not.”
