FEMA, County may close Three Rivers Mobile Park

BY POLLY KEARY, EDITOR

As neighborhoods go, it’s a little unusual; some of the homes are made of tarp cloth and campers, others are mobile homes or old RVS. But Wednesday afternoon, it was clear that although the homes at Three Rivers Mobile Park may be temporary in nature, the community there is more durable. Ducks stretched their necks and honked from a small wire pen in one yard; children bounced on a large trampoline in another, roosters crowed in the distance.

	DUANE KAESTNER PUT HIS MOBILE HOME put his mobile home in the Three Rivers Mobile Park 15 years ago as a way to live cheaply while paying child support. Now he stays because he loves it. But the county and FEMA may soon drive him and his neighbors out due to repeated flooding of the area in recent years. PHOTO BY POLLY KEARY

Duane Kaestner has been there 15 years, and on a walk to the riverbank from his highly customized, bright teal mobile home, it was clear he plans to stay a lot longer.

He waved at neighbors lounging near the river in cedar deck chairs, pointed out a fishing pole set into a PVC pipe planted in the bank. On the way, he passed a giant maple surrounded by an elaborate raised bed of flowers and shrubs. He built that; it is a tribute and memorial to his son who drowned in the river there 10 years ago.

The river is quiet now, lazy and green, backed by the crest of Lord’s Hill. But the river that took his son may soon take his home. Not because of the repeated floods that sweep through the park every few years. He’s already survived those. Because the county and the Federal Emergency Management Agency is poised to evict everyone in the Monroe park because of those repeated floods.

In the last three years in a row, floods have invaded the riverside park, located on the west bank of the Snohomish River near SR 522. So in June, the county gave everyone in the park until Aug. 31 to remove their homes from the park. If they don’t, the federal government could stop providing flood insurance to about 1,200 people in the county.
“We’ve been cooperating with the county for some time,” said Mark Carey of FEMA in Everett. “That park is well-known for its frequency of being flooded.”

That puts Snohomish County outside the requirements of the federal government for the federal flood insurance program, Carey explained. The federal government offers low cost flood insurance to home owners, but only if their counties comply with certain requirements. “Cities and counties volunteer for the program,” said Carey. “Entrance requires some things and one is development laws against homes in the flood plain.” So FEMA in March gave the county 60 days to present a plan for removing the trailer park.

The county’s plan was to give the residents till Aug. 31 to clean up and move on. And that creates a terrible hardship for the people who live there, said Kaestner.

“I moved in her in order to be able to pay my child support,” said the ponytailed house painter, sitting in his tidy customized mobile home, presided over by a trophy stag with cowboy hats dangling from its antlers. He pays $385 per month for the gravel pad on which his home rests, a mid-priced rental for the 60 or so homes situated along he gravel loop road that passes through the park.

There are 68 pads in the park; most are now occupied by RVs and trailers, said Kaestner who estimated that only about 23 are occupied by mobile homes any more.

Even if the people who live there could find similar rent elsewhere, he pointed out, and even if they could afford the several thousand dollars it would take to haul a mobile home to a new location, there might not be anywhere to go. “You can’t move a trailer home more than 10 years old. I don’t know any park that would do it,” he said. “There’s not one here that could move. They are all too old.”

But if Kaestner can’t find a place to move his home, the carefully painted teal walls, the tile floor he installed, the chimney that accommodates his fireplace, all could be crushed by bulldozers and he could be billed for the cost, he fears. And he has it better than a lot of his neighbors. With his skilled trade and his son now grown, he can afford a few extras, like a flat screened TV. “We got disabled people here,” he said. One of his neighbors lives on $1,200 a month, he said; others live on less. “Where are they going to go?” he said.

There are things the government can do to help people relocate, said Carey, and right now the county and FEMA are working together to come up with a plan for how to find people new homes. “The city is working with the state to put together a plan,” he said. “We recognize the social issues.” Already FEMA has granted an extension from the Aug. 31 deadline. |

Representative Kirk Pearson is having his staff explore the matter. He believes the law should allow the people living there a full year to find new digs. Among the tools the state, county and FEMA could offer are buy-outs. In Sultan, along the river, FEMA bought the properties of more than a dozen landowners to clear the floodplain there. And relocating the entire park isn’t out of the question, he said. “We have numerous examples of manufactured home parks that have been successfully relocated,” he said.

It’s the last option that holds the most interest for Kaestner. Because more than losing a home, he fears losing a community. “We’re a tight family, you don’t get that just anywhere,” he said “We all pitch in, we help each other out.”

He would miss living on the river if he was forced to leave, he said, gazing over the placid surface. “It wouldn’t be so bad if they just found some place and moved us all,” he said. “It would be hard if we were just scattered abroad.”

Back to main page