The Northwest has been pummeled by rain in November. Seattle proper has received nearly 10 inches in the past week and a half, while Mount Rainier was recently drenched with 18 inches in 36 hours.

All that new rain on Rainier has to go somewhere, and one of those swollen routes to the sea is the Cowlitz River. The Wish clan has a place in Packwood, which is right on the Cowlitz, so when we heard the river had changed course and swallowed several houses we were alarmed to say the least. Most of the roads into Packwood were knocked out, as was electricity—all of our neighbors were evacuated.

Concrete details started to stream in (pun sort-of intended) when I began to follow the story unfurling on the web. I saw one of our neighbor’s houses on MSNBC:

Photo via MSNBC: Shelley Matchett / Lewis County Sheriff’s Office

And then another terribly unfortunate neighbor:

Photo via MSNBC: Nick George / The Chronicle

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From what we’ve heard from FEMA, the Sheriff’s office, and scattered reports from locals we were lucky, and our place is virtually unscathed. We’ll find out for sure soon enough. Just hundreds of feet away whole houses were lost. My heart goes out to them.

Ironically, trees that had grown up on the river bank near our cabin that I had planned on removing last summer may have been what kept the earth together enough to stem the tide.