BNSF teams complete flood restoration efforts in the PNW
By MIKE PAGEL
Staff Writer
Our teams in the Pacific Northwest are accustomed to soggy conditions. However, what they endured and overcame in mid-December was beyond the pale.
Wave after wave of atmospheric river storms brought high winds, unrelenting rain and flooding to much of the region. In western Washington, rainfall exceeded 17 inches in the Cascade Range, with slightly lesser amounts spread between the mountains and Puget Sound. The deluge of water poured into the rivers, pushing many of them to record levels and bringing devastating flooding, including to portions of our network.
Four subdivisions on our Northwest Division were affected. The Engineering team was able to restore service to three relatively quickly, but damage to one subdivision was more severe.
Yet teams persevered, working through ongoing soggy and chilly conditions to safely bring the last segment of washed-out track back into service on Friday, Dec. 19.
In addition to persistent rain, multiple widespread power outages made the recovery and service continuation efforts even more challenging. The outages were caused by wind gusts of up to 90 mph in some areas. Signal teams brought in generators to provide power to railroad signals during the outages.
All this took place during the intensity of the Parcel Peak holiday shipping season. Despite the disruptions caused by flooding, our teams still turned in a “perfect peak,” delivering more than 80 million packages on time for the holidays.
“What an impressive display of teamwork and resiliency by our team members to safely restore our lines on these subdivisions,” said General Manager, Northwest Division Edmundo Rodriguez. “This truly was a historic weather event that presented a significant number of challenges to the BNSF crews in the field. I’m impressed with their perseverance and resiliency to overcome those challenges and complete the task of safely restoring service to our customers.”
