PORTLAND, Ore.—Residents in the foothills of the towering Blue Mountains in rural northeast Oregon were plucked from their flooded homes by helicopter and others rode to safety in the bucket of a front-end loader as relentless rain and melting snow pushed multiple rivers over their banks.
An earlier heavy snowfall in the mountains combined with two days of steady rain and warming temperatures to unleash floodwaters on the city of Pendleton and rural, mountain foothill communities to its east late Thursday and Friday. The Umatilla River crested just before 10 p.m. Thursday at more than 19 feet, nearly four times the average height for that date. Rivers all around the region overran their banks, setting records as they went.
