The Town of Fri­day Har­bor has not­ed that water lev­els in the water stor­age tanks in Town are dan­ger­ous­ly low and the Town is there­fore impos­ing an imme­di­ate water rationing order and may lat­er need to ini­ti­ate planned ser­vice out­ages to main­tain ser­vice. We have no indi­ca­tion that there are major leaks in the dis­tri­b­u­tion  Con­tin­ue Reading

To Fri­day Har­bor water sys­tem cus­tomers – Town of Fri­day Har­bor is ask­ing any­one who owns or lives in prop­er­ty served by the Town water sys­tem to check for water leaks both inside and out­side. Since the freez­ing tem­per­a­tures arrived the Town has seen an unusu­al draw down of our water tanks chal­leng­ing the abil­i­ty  Con­tin­ue Reading

To Town Water Cus­tomers: The recent cold snap has caused pipes to freeze in hous­es and build­ings that have nev­er had that issue before.  Due to increased water usage, we know there are more leaks in the sys­tem.  We ask every­one to check their hous­es, inside and out, to make sure they don’t have burst  Con­tin­ue Reading

Steve Roberts shot this pho­to on First Street last night. It sure is a thing of beau­ty, but if you don’t need to go out, con­sid­er stay­ing home. Now’s a good time to binge on Net­flix or read that book you keep putting off. Also a good time to avoid giv­ing EMS and the ER  Con­tin­ue Reading

Snow is cur­rent­ly in the fore­cast for this week­end. If you would like to learn more about how the Coun­ty pri­or­i­tizes and responds to snow events on Coun­ty Roads please vis­it Map Gallery | San Juan Coun­ty, WA see where you can view our pri­or­i­ty maps and plans for snow removal. Please remem­ber, win­ter weath­er  Con­tin­ue Reading

Freez­er Burned is an ongo­ing series on the San Juan Update, writ­ten by Steve Ulvi… (Authors note: this fic­tion­al tale of Alas­ka bush life adven­ture, grief and redemp­tion, cir­ca the 1980s, will be con­tin­ued found­ed upon two pre­vi­ous sto­ries.  See Freez­er Burned: “No Mat­ter What” and “The Con­fines of Heav­en” for char­ac­ter back­ground.) The Con­fines of  Con­tin­ue Reading

From drought con­di­tions this sum­mer to record rain­fall and flood­ing last month, water man­age­ment is cer­tain­ly a crit­i­cal issue. San Juan County’s Clean Water Util­i­ty, man­aged by the Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Stew­ard­ship, serves cit­i­zens by address­ing storm and sur­face water infra­struc­ture improve­ments such as stream cul­verts and water qual­i­ty treat­ment. The Util­i­ty also sweeps and  Con­tin­ue Reading

UPDATE — Kille­brew Lake Road on Orcas Island is now open. Pub­lic Works com­plet­ed their assess­ment Thurs­day morn­ing and have deter­mined that the road is safe to open. Laporte Road remains closed just past the inter­sec­tion with John Jones Road.

The fol­low­ing was shared with you by North­west Work­force Coun­cil… The Depart­ment of Social and Health Ser­vices has acti­vat­ed the Dis­as­ter Cash Assis­tance Pro­gram, or DCAP, to serve peo­ple affect­ed by severe weath­er events. House­holds impact­ed by floods, land­slides, mud­slides and oth­er haz­ardous events in the 14 coun­ties includ­ed in Gov­er­nor Inslee’s Novem­ber 15, 2021,  Con­tin­ue Reading

The mas­sive rain event last week caused a wide range of impacts in the coun­ty and caught many islanders off-guard. The severe weath­er was caused by an atmos­pher­ic riv­er: a long, nar­row band of water vapor that often is released as rain or snow when it makes land­fall. While the scope and dam­age may be  Con­tin­ue Reading

This is from the SJC Dept. of Emer­gency Man­age­ment… Things are look­ing good for a poten­tial open­ing tomor­row (Tues­day — knock on wood). Pub­lic Works is await­ing deliv­ery of bar­ri­ers for the road edge that are due to arrive on the 5:30am fer­ry on Tues­day from Ana­cortes. Once those are placed and final site work  Con­tin­ue Reading

Due to ero­sion hav­ing caused cav­i­ties beneath the roadbed, Crow Val­ley Road on Orcas Island will be closed to west-bound traf­fic (traf­fic head­ing away from East­sound towards Island Hard­ware) between Orcas Road (Fowler’s Cor­ner) and West Beach Road (Island Hard­ware). East-bound traf­fic is not impact­ed at this time. The clo­sure will last at least into ear­ly  Con­tin­ue Reading

The Con­ser­va­tion Land Bank’s Turtle­back Moun­tain, Judd Cove and Coho Pre­serves on Orcas Island sus­tained heavy dam­age from last weekend’s record rain­fall. Although staff are pri­or­i­tiz­ing safe­­ty-relat­ed repairs to roads and trails, please expect minor dis­rup­tions. Some repairs may take months and some impacts will be last­ing. In par­tic­u­lar, the cul­vert under Wil­drose Lane just  Con­tin­ue Reading

BURLINGTON — Record rain­fall caused flood­ing in sev­er­al parts of What­com and Skag­it coun­ties, forc­ing clo­sures of sev­er­al state high­ways. Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion crews worked through the week­end and con­tin­ue to work to clear fall­en trees and rock­slides, but in some areas such as along State Route 20 between Cas­ca­dia Farms (MP 98) to  Con­tin­ue Reading

San Juan Coun­ty Coun­cil Spe­cial Meet­ing — Declar­ing State of Emer­gency The San Juan Coun­ty Coun­cil will hold a spe­cial meet­ing on Tues­day, Novem­ber 16, 2021, at 8 am, to con­sid­er a Res­o­lu­tion declar­ing a State of Emer­gency.  The severe weath­er sys­tem that passed over San Juan Coun­ty on Novem­ber 14th and 15th, 2021, dropped a  Con­tin­ue Reading

Extreme­ly heavy rains have fall­en across the islands over the last 24 hours, caus­ing a wide range of impacts to San Juan Coun­ty roads and infra­struc­ture. Pub­lic Works crews from both the Coun­ty and the Town of Fri­day Har­bor have been respond­ing since late last night. Orcas Island in par­tic­u­lar has expe­ri­enced a num­ber of sig­nif­i­cant  Con­tin­ue Reading