Beach berm failure leads to significant flooding in Hansville

HANSVILLE — From his house on Point No Point Road, Darren Gurnee watched water slowly cross the street, approaching his home Tuesday morning. Sensing that the flooding — driven by king tides and heavy rain that raised water along shorelines across Kitsap earlier this week — could be historically significant, Gurnee took his drone out and drove to the parking lot of Norwegian Point County Park.

From there, his DJI Mavic Mini took off and flew it over Point No Point Road, which parallels the shoreline running east from Hansville Road, to the historic Point No Point Lighthouse, documenting the scene from above the community on the far north end of Kitsap County. Through the camera on his drone, Gurnee — and many others who saw his footage afterward on YouTube — saw streets, yards and homes flooded all along Point No Point Road and at Point No Point County Park.

The considerable flooding lasted through Friday, when roads remained impassable to vehicles and neighbors needed hip waders or boats to traverse the area. The amount of water still surrounding beach homes was pinned on the failure of a berm near the Point No Point Lighthouse that couldn't stop tidewater that began flowing across Point No Point Road on Tuesday, county officials said. Now water in the lowland areas isn't flowing back to Puget Sound, even when tides receded during the rest of the week.

Though Gurnee's house has not had water come inside, he has to park about a half mile away and use hip waders to walk through the water to get to his house.

"I hadn't seen anything like this in the 10 years I've been here. And from what I've heard from our neighbors, they had never seen it like that before, maybe 30 years ago," Gurnee said.

When the tide rose by 11 a.m. on Friday, water completely covered Norwegian Point Park and could be seen over Hansville Road extending several hundred feet south from where it bends and becomes Twin Spits Road.

Todd Cannon, who lives on a hill near the intersection of Hansville Road and Point No Point Road, was walking through the standing water on Hansville Road as he headed to the post office across the street from Norwegian Point Park.

"It's probably a foot deep," Cannon said on Friday morning. "These boots are 12 inches and it's just about at the edge of my boots."

In response to the flooding, Kitsap County Public Works, County Parks, and the County’s Department of Emergency Management (DEM) are working together to repair the beach berm. This week the county has been installing over 100 large "Super Sack" sandbags along the road to create a temporary barrier to stop tidewater from pouring into the area. After that is completed, the county will pump the water out of the lowland area, said Dave Tucker, Assistant Director at Kitsap County Public Works on Thursday.

The third step would be to repair the beach berm. Jan Glarum, acting director of the county's DEM issued a Director's Proclamation of Emergency on Wednesday, which is needed for the county to obtain a permit issued by the Washington Department of Fishing and Wildlife to repair the beach berm.

The required repair on the beach can only be done at low tide, with makes it difficult and may take a few days to complete, according to Tucker. The county is focusing on minimizing damage and restoring the berm as quickly as possible, he said.

"The timeline is to get this done as quickly as possible because we have another king tide coming in at the end of January," Kitsap County Parks Director Alex Wisniewski told Kitsap Sun on Thursday.

It is unclear how much the flooding has damaged the park or lighthouse, since Point No Point Road was closed and crew members couldn't get into the park to check the properties, Wisniewski said.

Wisniewski said the situation at Point No Point is the most severe one around the county, compared with other county parks that were affected by the king tide and heavy rain earlier this week.

"We do have impacts from high tides at other county parks, but none of them result in this type of impact," Wisniewski said.

Julie Snyder of Poulsbo rents a beach home along Point No Point Road with her family each Christmas break. The Snyders had been stranded in the house since Tuesday due to high water. Though water did not get into the house, because the roads were impassable by car Snyder said her brother drove from Bainbridge Island with milk, beer, eggs and puzzles to pass the time, and delivered the items via his paddleboard. Snyder said her family is safe and has electricity and adequate food, but she worries about neighbors who may not have a way to get food delivered.

The county's DEM is looking into relief programs with the state's Department of Emergency Management and the Red Crossto offer shelter and cleaning kits to residents of Point No Point Road or others in Hansville impacted by the flood, according to the county. And residents like Gurnee and his neighbors remain patient as work progresses, the forecast calls for continued rain, and access remains limited to their neighborhood.

"The area is unsafe. Vehicles could damage the roadway. Please do not visit the area during this emergency," DEM said on its webpage.