Washington asking feds for $76M for flood damage to highways

Washington is seeking an estimated $76 million in federal reimbursements for repairs to highways damaged in December’s historic flooding. 

The state expects the Federal Highway Administration will reimburse most of the repair costs, but officials say it will likely take years.

This ask is separate from the state’s previous pleas for federal funding to recover from the storms that devastated thousands of homes, forced tens of thousands of Washingtonians to evacuate from flooded areas and damaged over a dozen highways. Other approved requests have funded repairs to damaged infrastructure and assistance for individuals. 

So far, Washington has asked the Trump administration for upward of $250 million in federal aid to respond to the record-breaking flooding. 

The most notable highway destruction was on U.S. 2. 

Parts of that major east-west route across the Cascades collapsed entirely, leading to a more than two-week closure for a 50-mile stretch between Skykomish and Leavenworth. 

While the highway fully reopened ahead of schedule with temporary fixes, permanent repairs are still ongoing. Stretches of U.S. 2 have seen intermittent closures this month as crews work to complete the restoration.

Washington is seeking an estimated $16 million for the emergency repairs and another $16 million for the permanent work, said Allison Krutsinger, senior director of external relations at the state Department of Transportation.

The state also wants federal aid for a dozen other federal and state highways, including Interstate 90, Highway 20 and State Route 410. Another is U.2. 12 in Naches, where more than 300 feet of guardrail and highway washed out. On State Route 542, also known as the Mount Baker Highway, 110 feet of embankment eroded beneath the roadway. And a slide on U.S. 101 near Forks led crews to build a reinforced retaining wall to stabilize the road.

In his State of the State address in January, Gov. Bob Ferguson praised state crews for working quickly to restore access after the “devastating blow to our infrastructure.”

“Our Washington State Department of Transportation crews answered the call,” he said. “From Yakima to Enumclaw, state employees and our partners worked under challenging conditions and cleared 97 roads in just four weeks.”

The reimbursement process will be lengthy. For reference, the state got federal money for work related to a 2018 event in recent months, Krutsinger said. 

The $76 million total request is expected to change as permanent repairs continue. The state has submitted paperwork to the Federal Highway Administration to get the ball rolling.

The federal agency didn’t respond to a request for comment on Washington’s request.

The individual assistance for flood victims closed last month, with $14.5 million distributed so far, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. That was millions of dollars less than Ferguson requested based on initial need estimates. 

Washington had its own pot of aid for residents, but the money went mostly unused due to stringent requirements over who can access it. The governor has said he wants to see these rules changed.

Ferguson, a Democrat, had also asked the feds for $36 million to pay for projects to gird the state against future flooding. The Trump administration denied that request, leading the state to appeal. Washington officials haven’t heard back on that appeal, Karina Shagren, spokesperson for the Washington Military Department, said Wednesday.

State leaders feared President Donald Trump would reject even more of the state’s flood aid requests, as he has denied help in some cases, especially in Democrat-led states. That was true here for Washington’s request for help after the 2024 bomb cyclone.