SEQUIM — A Sequim man shored up his home against the onslaught of the rain-swollen Dungeness River, which by Thursday had come within several feet of his back porch.
Matt McWilliams, 59, had spent the past two days using tree logs and debris to create a barrier at the edge of his home at 131 Serenity Lane, located southwest of Sequim, in the hope of halting the advancing deluge.
He was helped by his friend Kevin Booren, 55, of Sequim, who was by his side in a pair of rubber waders and armed with a shovel to stem the flow of the river.
“Kevin came out yesterday, and we did what we could,” McWilliams said Thursday on the bank of the river.
The Dungeness River peaked at slightly above its flood stage of 7 feet early Wednesday, with a discharge of more than 4,000 cubic feet per second, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
By 4:30 p.m. Thursday, it had fallen to about 6 feet, with a discharge of slightly less than 3,000 cfs.
As of Thursday afternoon, the efforts of McWilliams and Booren had paid off.
They had felled a few trees at the edge of the river, which “stopped the progression of erosion,” McWilliams said.
The trees “protect the bank line,” he said.
They also had cleared debris from an existing channel north of the home to relieve pressure on the shoreline, McWilliams said.
“It kept wanting to go, but it couldn’t,” he said.
“It was blocked up. It needed some help.”
Had the duo not acted quickly, the house “would have been gone [Thursday] morning,” McWilliams said.
“If we wouldn’t have done what we did last night — thank God Kevin came — the front half of the house, at least, would be gone.”
McWilliams and his wife, Michele, 53, have “taken precautions” just in case the river claims their home, he said.
“My wife has packed important things, but we are not going to move out the furnishings,” he said.
And they don’t have renters insurance, he said.
If they do lose the house, “I guess we will go to a shelter,” he said.
The Dungeness River has slowly been chipping away at the edge of the McWilliamses’ property, which they rent from a family in Seattle, for the past two years, McWilliams said.
The couple has lived there for 3½ years, he said.
With every big rainstorm, more of his yard has disappeared, McWilliams said, but never quite so dramatically as in the 24-hour period from Wednesday morning to Thursday morning.
During that time, the river swallowed up about 50 yards of lawn and trees, coming within several feet of his home, McWilliams said.
McWilliams is a retired helitack firefighter with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and has experience dealing with flooding during El Niño winters.
Nevertheless, McWilliams and his wife are “in awe of the power and the raw natural beauty” of the Dungeness, he said.
On Thursday afternoon, an excavator arrived on scene to help shore up the boundary against the river, and McWilliams and Booren remained on scene, stalwart in their fight against Mother Nature.
“We will get it fixed,” Booren said.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Chris McDaniel can be reached at 360-681-2390, ext. 5052, or cmcdaniel@peninsuladailynews.com.
