04-04-25 Douglas County March 2025 Flood Progress Report (Photo)
-04/04/25
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - FRIDAY, APRIL 4, 2025
Douglas County March 2025 Flood - Progess Report
(Douglas County, Ore.) – Despite reports circulating in our community that the "State of Emergency" declared for Douglas County's March 2025 Flood Event has ended, the Douglas County Board of Commissioners confirmed that we are still in a "State of Emergency." Noting this, the Commissioners invited a few of our Douglas County Response Team Leaders and a Community Partner to their weekly business meeting Wednesday to provide progress reports of the first eighteen days of our emergency flood response. Douglas County Response Team leaders and community partner presenting today were Emily Ring, Douglas County Emergency Manager; Scott Adams, Douglas County Public Works Director; Tamara Howell, Douglas County Public Information Officer; Undersheriff Brad O’Dell, Douglas County Sheriff’s Office; and Chief Brian Burke, North Douglas Fire and Rescue. Each provided a detailed report on the status of their response team assignments. As you read through this report you will understand the sheer magnitude of this emergency event. If you are interested in watching the video of the special presentation of the eighteen-day progress report for the Douglas County March 2025 Flood Event, click on this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zai120rcv-E.
DOUGLAS COUNTY MARCH 2025 FLOOD EIGHTEEN DAY PROGRESS REPORT
First to present was the Public Information Team of Tamara Howell and Undersheriff Brad O’Dell. Howell provided a brief recap of the chain of events that unfolded in the early hours of day one of the flood emergency. Then she went on to discuss the framework of how an organized command base was quickly established along with the designation of specific response teams and leaders. She provided insight as to the importance of emergency response communications and the centralization of Public Information. And explained that “A PIO is responsible for disseminating accurate, timely, and consistent information to the public, media, and other stakeholders. A PIO manages media inquiries, unifies information for all agencies involved, provides updates, issues press releases, and oversees social media communication. In short, the PIO plays a critical role in ensuring effective and coordinated communication during an emergency response.” Undersheriff Brad O’Dell was appointed as the Lead PIO for the first phase of the emergency flood event, focusing on our top priority during the response; ensuring the safety of residents. He provided timely and frequent social media updates in the first 24 hours, as well as activating our various emergency alert system notifications to residents, businesses, visitors and media. With phase one (resident safety) firmly attained, Undersheriff O’Dell handed the PIO role over to Howell, County PIO on Monday, March 17. Her primary PIO focus was researching and writing a comprehensive daily flood and resource update then releasing or posting to several traditional and social media platforms, emails, newsletters and websites. Additionally, she maintained the Emergency Alert banner on the County website; helped establish and write scripts for Oregon’s 2-1-1 call-in resource line; designed graphics and maintained our social media pages; and helped to archive photos and videos of the flood damaged areas across the county. Howell stressed the importance of having homeowners, businesses, churches and non-profits complete the Flood Damage Surveys.
Undersheriff O’Dell added that the “Our Emergency Response Team is truly a coordinated effort working in partnership with all the county departments and our community response organizations. I know our commissioners were actively engaged and readily accessible during this whole process. That is how this county works. Anytime there is an emergency or disaster, it’s coordinated, it’s thoughtful and swift in response! I appreciate the partnership with Tamara, Kellie Trenkle, and the whole PIO team. I am proud to be here, proud to be part of this team, and be part of the response.”
During the first eighteen days our coordinated PIO team completed:
- Sent a total of 166,077 emails via our various platforms
- Wrote, published and released 18 updates, including 3 Facebook Live events
- Recorded Social Media Engagements: 1,356,992 views; 9478 likes; 4,806 shares & made 64 total posts
- Received a total of 138 calls via 2-1-1 information line
- Did 5 live radio interviews and responded to another 15 media inquiries
- Issued a total of 5 Emergency Alerts out to about 120,000 people
- Recorded over 1,140 calls to our 9-1-1 dispatch center on Sunday, March 16 (Average Sunday is around 400 calls)
- Took 315 aerial photographs and recorded 43 ariel videos for a total length of 93 minutes of footage
- Archived over 500 photos and videos of the flooded areas
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Next to present a progress report was Douglas County Public Works Director, Scott Adams. He started by explaining how every weekend his department actively monitors the weather and begins preparing and communicating as soon as they receive forecasts indicating potential trigger events that could lead to major storms affecting Douglas County. Scott also noted that the end of 2024 and into 2025 has been a little bit of nuance for us with extremely wet weather. Southern Oregon had heavy precipitation reported in October, November and December, then again in late January and February but with added snowfall in the upper elevations and minor flooding in the valleys. The wet weather trend continued into March, with additional snow and rainfall pushing our soil to peak levels of oversaturation.
Scott then recounted how the events unfolded on the weekend of March 15. The heavy rain showers came as predicted, but the skies continued to pour, and the intensifying moisture never let up. Adding to the situation was the fact that the rain was unusually warm, which caused significant snowmelt in the higher elevations. The snowmelt runoff began flowing down the mountains into the already water-soaked valleys, bringing timber, debris, and mud along with it. It didn’t take much to create the conditions that began unfolding late in the day on Saturday, March 15. Before nightfall, roads across the county were flooding, and by morning, creeks, rivers, and lake levels had surpassed their capacity—completely submerging streets in water, washing out roads, overtopping bridges, surging mud into homes, filling basements, and burying farmland. The excessive rainfall and snowmelt resulted in over 105 landslide zones (some with multiple slides and debris flows) and dozens of flooded county-operated roadways. By 4:00 am on Sunday, March 16, several of Scott’s public works crews were already heading out to areas reporting major road damage or severe flooding. Crews were assessing the damage, installing closure, detour, high-water, and caution signs, and beginning repair work. By 7:00 a.m., after assessing the initial impact of the storm, and with 95% of his crew already deployed, he began calling in help from about two dozen local private contractors. The impact was widespread, impacting nearly every one of our 1,140 miles of county-operated roads. At one point they ran out of their large inventory of flood and detour signs and had to start using other signs to block access to roads with dangerously high-water levels. The damage and response efforts mentioned above do not even include the huge impact on all the state and city managed roads.
About 12:00 pm on Sunday, we lost our first section of county-operated roads. This was at the 3500 block of Hubbard Creek Road in Umpqua. A 40-foot section of the road completely washed-out taking asphalt, rock, logs, and power poles into the raging Umpqua River below. The washout cut off access for residents with no way around. Knife River, one of our local contractors, was dispatched by Public Works to rebuild the roadway and by 11:00 pm that evening a single lane had been restored. Working continuously through the next two nights, crews were able to build and reopen both lanes by the end of
shift on Tuesday, March 18. Crews from Knife River are still working hard and addressing issues on the eight mile stretch of Hubbard Creek that was heavily impacted. (Hubbard Creek Road pictured here midday on Sunday and then Tuesday.)
Slides and debris flows continued to be reported and addressed throughout Sunday and persisted well into the next week. The rain also continued through Monday, and along with-it temperatures plummeted and areas above 300 feet saw 3-8 inches of snow. Area rivers and creeks started cresting late Sunday night and most of the waters started to recede by late Monday night. Both County and private contracted crews worked all day Sunday and throughout the night into Monday morning with a goal to get at least one lane of access open and safe on every county-operated road. By the end of the day on Tuesday, March 18, Douglas County Public Works had mobilized 15 contractors (including over 100 personnel and 70+ pieces of equipment), along with more than 50 county employees with dozens of pieces of equipment. They were still working to remove debris, rebuild roads, and clear culverts and ditches, all while continuously moving signs throughout the county’s road system as the water receded. Initial damage estimates to date for Douglas County operated roads is $5.2 million. This is still only an estimate of damage as we are still uncovering damage as we continue to remove mud and debris from roads, ditches and culverts. County roads that experienced major damage included Hubbard Creek Road, Melqua Road, Callahan Road, Garden Valley Road, Upper Smith River Road, Bullock Road, Maupin Road, Goodrich Hwy, Nonpareil Road and Cooper Creek Road. Currently public works still have seven private contractor crews working on the cleanup, as well as a full county staff working on clean up and repair damage.
One of the biggest impacts during this weather event was at Galesville Reservoir. While most people think of the Galesville Dam as a conduit for irrigation and recreation in southern Douglas County, this time it acted as a major flood control device saving the communities of Glendale, Riddle, Myrtle Creek and Winston from even greater flooding and additional carnage. On Sunday, March 16, the water level in the reservoir grew over 12 feet in less than 10 hours. At the height of the rainstorm, the dam nearly reached maximum capacity, just 8 inches from spilling over. Throughout Sunday, Public Works staff, under the watchful eyes of Commissioner Tom Kress, monitored the flooding in Glendale and Riddle via Cow Creek and the South Umpqua River. As Cow Creek continued to rise, staff held back releases from Galesville to minimize flooding impacts downriver. In cooperation with NOAA, staff modeled when Cow Creek would peak at Glendale and then came up with a plan to increase water valve releases from Galesville Dam to coincide with the receding floodwater near Glendale. During the process, the staff decided to open both turbines alongside the fixed cone valve, which significantly boosted the flow and, fortunately, helped slow the rise in the reservoir level. Coinciding with a decrease in precipitation, this method prevented uncontrolled, catastrophic spillover of the dam, while keeping the release of water at the highest level possible without contributing to additional flooding down steam.
“The dam (Galesville) was not meant to spillover. This storm took us by surprise with the sheer volume of water it created in such a short period of time. But our skilled and creative engineering team worked all day and all through the night to monitor reservoir water levels, check downstream water levels, release just enough water to not create additional flooding in Glendale, and made sure all the gauges that we work hard to maintain all year did their jobs. In the end, the dam did what it was supposed to do,” stated Scott Adams. He also commended his Public Works crew – from the road manager to the supervisors to the crews, “They pick it up and bring a level of intensity to repairing roads like no other. We also have about a dozen on-call contracts that we maintain throughout the year, and when we called on Sunday these contractors had iron hitting the ground within an hour. We also have several dedicated staff members that work behind the scenes assigning projects, taking photos, mapping and detailing every incident.”
Douglas County Public Works teams will continue to monitor, assess damage and repair county-operated roadways as water levels continue to recede and they are able to fully assess the damage under bridges, in culverts and in ditches.
“The fact that most of your staff was here and ready to jump into help was incredible. The work that you (Scott) do and that the Commissioners have done over time to make sure we have those on-call contractors available so you can surge capacity and take care of the people of this county efficiently and safely,” commented Commissioner Freeman.
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Presenting a progress report for Douglas County Emergency Management was Emergency Manager Emily Ring. She provided a quick snapshot of Emergency Management’s response to the March 2025 flood event. Emily provided a review of county employees and community volunteers hours recorded for this event.
- Emergency Management Department: Emergency Manager 160 hours total for first two weeks. Assistant EM 96 hours total for first two weeks.
- Other Douglas County Departments that helped EM: Over 558 hours for first two weeks
- This does not include the time and efforts of our local first responders and dispatchers that dealt with some 270 public safety calls during the first 48 hours of the incident.
- 7 Douglas County Departments additionally supported and performed field damage surveys to meet required data gathering for Oregon State Office of Emergency Management at an estimated 50 hours.
- Central CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) volunteered 35.75 hours
She provided a summary of action times her team completed for this event.
- Douglas County quickly activated an Emergency Command Center
- Established a chain of command and team assignments with Douglas County Commissioners and Douglas County Sheriff’s Office
- Issued a State of Emergency Declaration and submitted it to the State
- Conducted several multi-partner briefings
- Made requests for state resources, including technical personnel, supplies for public events
- Activated local COAD (Community Organizations Active in Disaster)
- Activated Glide Revitalization as our LTRG (Long Term Recovery Group)
- Made a request for Team Rubicon to come to Douglas County and assist in home clean ups
- Seek out and apply for Funder Supported Paths: PA, IA, FSA, SBA
- Seek out and apply for State and Federal level declaration support
- Organized and executed rapid damage assessments
- Worked with OEM to promote self-report surveys
- Helped triage resources for repairs on facilities and roads – putting life safety needs first
- Triaged public requests – put life safety needs first
- Helped organize and conduct 8 mobile resource centers
- Coordinated with PIO for daily updates
- Helped connect people with resources
- Managed communications with State and partner agencies.
Emily then provided an impressive slide of all the agencies that have been involved during this emergency event.
Law Enforcement: Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, Roseburg Police Department, Myrtle Creek Police Department, Cow Creek Tribal Police, Winston Police Department and Sutherlin Police Department.
Fire Agencies: Roseburg Fire Department, Glide Rural Fire Protection District, North Douglas Fire and Rescue, Central Douglas Fire and Rescue, Tenmile Volunteer Fire Department, Riddle Fire Protection District, Sutherlin Fire Department, Myrtle Creek Fire Department, Lookingglass Volunteer Fire, TriCity Volunteer Fire Department, Camas Valley Volunteer Fire Department, Azalea Volunteer Fire Department, Scottsburg-Elkton-Kellogg Volunteer Fire Departments and Oakland Volunteer Fire Department.
Non-Profit and Volunteer Agencies: Douglas County Public Health Network, Glide Revitalization, American Red Cross, Salvation Army, United Community Action Network, Central Douglas CERT Team, Four Square Churches, Roseburg Christian Fellowship, New Hope Church, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, The Fathers House, Drain Church of Christ, Douglas County COAD members, and 211 Info.
County Departments: Douglas County Board of Commissioners, Emergency Management, Public Works (Administration, Engineering, GIS, Operations & Maintenance and Natural Resources), Solid Waste, Sheriff’s Office (All divisions including Dispatch 911 Communications and Search & Rescue), Management and Finance, Parks, Fairgrounds, Information Technology, Planning, Facilities, County Counsel, Human Resources and Public Affairs.
Cities: Roseburg, Drain, Myrtle Creek, Yoncalla, Riddle, Oakland, Sutherlin and Glendale.
State Agencies/Regional Corps or LLCs: Oregon Emergency Management, Oregon Department of Health and Human Services, OREM, Oregon Division of Financial Regulation, Oregon Department of Transportation, Oregon State Police, Douglas Electric Cooperative, Pacificorp, Energy Trust of Oregon, Oregon Department of Agriculture, Oregon State Extension Service and Oregon Farm Service Agency.
Schools: Myrtle Creek Elementary, Green Elementary, Yoncalla High School, Sutherlin High School
“This was your (Emilys) first big event with Douglas County and you and your team did amazing! The fact that we are carrying the emergency response directly into the recovery and there is no gap is new and unique for us and I love that that is what’s happening. Bu more importantly what is evident in your work is how much you care about the work you do and how much you care about the people that need your help. It is exactly why you are the right person for this job.”
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Lastly, Commissioner Freeman invited Chief Brian Burke with North Douglas Fire and EMS up to talk about his experience during the recent flood event. Chief Burke’s unique role with that fire district covering multi jurisdictions is a great example of how the county works with the local communities and meets them where they are. Drain has an interim city administrator right now and he covers the fire and emergency response for both Drain and Yoncalla, as well as the large area around them. Chief Burke noted that his fire and EMS district response area covers about 720 square miles. He has seven full-time staff and is supported by 54 local volunteers. Chief Burke then provided a recollection of the flood events. He was short staffed at the start of the event, but had several volunteers show up to help man the three station locations in Yoncalla, Drain and Rice Hill. Early Sunday morning when he pulled into Yoncalla, which was hit first with flooding. He noticed quite a bit of flooding and quickly realized that they did not have access from Yoncalla directly into Drain as Eagle Valley Road had completely flooded over and was no longer safe to drive. To reach Drain they had to reroute over to the freeway, go to Curtin and back down to Drain. Chief Burke had about 16 volunteers at the ready when he arrived, and they were able to launch a drone to get some aerial footage and survey the area to see the totality of the damage. Having a good idea of the situation, they quickly set up a mini-operations center at the station. This is where they assessed the situation, addressed road hazards, discussed citizen safety, and prioritized crews.
“About an hour into the incident, Commissioner Freeman called me and asked me what I needed and how he could help. I told him I did not know yet. He said call me when you do. From there we were in constant contact throughout the rest of the day. The first rescue was for a local rancher. His livestock were trapped on the other side of a road with the raging river in between. With the use of a boat and several volunteers they were able to help herd cattle downriver to a lower point and get them safely across and back to their barn. Which was a huge help and relief for this family’s livelihood. From there we started rescuing people from homes. We needed boats and thankfully one was loaned to the department and two local people showed up with their boats. One of my first asks to Commissioner Freeman was about a place to take people once they were rescued and in about an hour Red Cross was setting up a shelter Drain. We had done about 15 home evacuations when I realized I could not reach everyone. My boats were either too small or too big. So, I asked for assistance again from Commissioner Freeman and the next thing I know DCSO Marine Patrol was there to assist with the rescues. We were able to directly share our updates with the County. Any resource that we needed was quick and easy to ask and if it was available they found a way to quickly get it to us. We also evacuated an entire adult care home which took hours. I started my day at about 6:30 am on Sunday and my last call was at 2:30 am Monday morning when I responded to a slide on I-5 that took a communication line down across the freeway. Which we were able to quickly fix without too much disruption to traffic,” recalled Chief Burke.
He also spoke about a grant that the Commissioners helped them get to expand their headquarters a few years ago and it has come in handy for this event and will help house the Team Rubicon Group that is headed to Douglas County to assist our residents with cleanup efforts. Thanks to the Commissioners that team will be here to help not only the City of Yoncalla and Drain, but county-wide.
In conclusion Chief Burke stated, “The fact that there are people out there that said that there wasn’t enough done. I don’t know what else could have been done. Our commissioners and staff were there for us. You were a great support first to our citizens and then us as a department second. I don’t know if you get enough thanks for what you do, I truly support it, and our community supports it. We thank you very much.”
Commissioner Freeman responded to Chief Burke’s flood report by stating, “I am so excited that you are in the role you are in for your community and for Douglas County. Your team of paid staff and volunteers took care of a very large area that received a lot of impact from the storm. And you did it in a way that made sure everyone was safe.”
Again, if you are interested in watching the presentation of the eighteen-day progress report for the Douglas County March 2025 Flood Event, click on this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zai120rcv-E.
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On a side note, from the author of this release, one statistic that was modestly left out of this presentation was the time, support and leadership provided by our County Commissioners. It is important to note that in response to the severe winter storm that struck Douglas County on Sunday, March 16 all three County Commissioners—Tim Freeman, Tom Kress, and Chris Boice— promptly responded to the emergency event in the early morning hours on March 16, and have continued to actively participate in the emergency response and recovery. Their collective commitment resulted in over 375 logged hours within the first two weeks following the initial reports of severe flooding. In addition to leading the response efforts at the command center the Commissioners worked and guided Cities; communicated directly and responded to calls for additional resources from communities and fire/responder agencies; monitored Galesville Dam; attended all eight pop up resource events; wrote an emergency declaration; spent numerous hours working with state officials; worked directly with PIO, Public Works and EM teams; collaborated with local partners; assigned county employees to help with response; assisted several homeowners and businesses; helped in the clean up efforts; directed resources to where they were needed the most; helped record, catalog and assess damage; and not only that but found time to honor Vietnam Veterans of America at a special Welcome Home Luncheon; conduct regular county business and meetings; and attend and participate in several FFA Auctions around the county. Yes, being a commissioner is definitely not a 9 to 5 - Monday through Friday job. Our commissioners truly care about our communities, and they are not afraid to jump into their rigs and lend a helping hand 24/7. The Commissioners will continue to be actively engaged in leading the response and recovery efforts for the March 2025 Flood in Douglas County for as long as the community needs them. Thank you for your support.
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Media Contact: Tamara Howell, Emergency Communications & Community Engagement Specialist, Lead County Public Information Officer - (541) 670-2804 cell - (541) 957-4896 office – tamara.howell@douglascountyor.gov
301 Glide Loop, Glide
(541) 671-0866 
301 Glide Loop, Glide, OR, United States, Oregon 
(541) 671-0866
Wednesday, March 26 – Yoncalla & Drain
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