MONROE, Wash. — A blast of arctic air swept south from Canada and spread into parts of the northern U.S., while residents of the Pacific Northwest braced for possible mudslides and levee failures from floodwaters that are expected to be slow to recede.<\/p>\n
The catastrophic flooding<\/a> forced thousands of people to evacuate, including Eddie Wicks and his wife, who live amid sunflowers and Christmas trees on a Washington state farm next to the Snoqualmie River. As they moved their two donkeys to higher ground and their eight goats to their outdoor kitchen, the water began to rise much quicker than anything they had experienced before.<\/p>\n As the water engulfed their home Thursday afternoon, deputies from the King County Sheriff\u2019s Office marine rescue dive unit were able to rescue them and their dog, taking them on a boat the half-mile (800 meters) across their field, which had been transformed into a lake. The rescue was captured on video<\/a>.<\/p>\n Another round of rain and wind is in store for the region as early as late Sunday, forecasters said.<\/p>\n \u201cBottom line at this point in time is we\u2019re not done despite the sunny conditions that we have across western Washington at this point,\u201d said Reid Wolcott, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Seattle.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is yet more still to come in terms of in terms of wind, in terms of rain, in terms in terms of flooding,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd Washingtonians need to be prepared for additional impacts, additional flooding, tree damage, power outages, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n High winds expected at the end of the weekend and into the first part of week are a concern because the ground is extremely saturated, putting trees at risk of toppling, he said.<\/p>\n In Snohomish County, Washington, north of Seattle, emergency officials on Saturday led federal, state and local officials on a tour of the devastation.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s obvious that thousands and thousands of Washingtonians and communities all across our state are in the process of digging out, and that\u2019s going to be a challenging process,\u201d Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s going to be expensive,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be time consuming, and it\u2019s going to be potentially dangerous at times. So I think we\u2019re seeing here in Monroe is what we\u2019re going to be seeing all across the state, and that\u2019s what\u2019s got our focus right now.\u201d<\/p>\n As the Pacific Northwest begins to recover from the deluge, a separate weather system already brought dangerous wind-chill values \u2014 the combination of cold air temperatures and wind \u2014 to parts of the Upper Midwest.<\/p>\n Shortly before noon Saturday, it was minus 12 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 24 degrees Celsius) in Grand Forks, North Dakota, where the wind-chill value meant that it felt like minus 33 F (minus 36 C), the National Weather Service said.<\/p>\n For big cities like Minneapolis and Chicago, the coldest temperatures were expected late Saturday night into Sunday morning. In the Minneapolis area, low temperatures were expected to drop to around minus 15 F (minus 26 C), by early Sunday morning. Lows in the Chicago area are projected to be around 1 F(minus 17 C) by early Sunday, the weather service said.<\/p>\n The Arctic air mass was expected to continue pushing south and east over the weekend, expanding into Southern states by Sunday.<\/p>\n The National Weather Service on Saturday issued cold weather advisories that stretched as far south as the Alabama state capital city of Montgomery, where temperatures late Sunday night into Monday morning were expected to plummet to around 22 F (minus 6 C). To the east, lows in Savannah, Georgia, were expected to drop to around 24 F (minus 4 C) during the same time period.<\/p>\n The cold weather freezing much of the country comes as residents in the Pacific Northwest endure more misery after several days of flooding. Thousands of people have been forced to evacuate towns in the region as an unusually strong atmospheric river<\/a> dumped a foot (30 centimeters) or more of rain in parts of western and central Washington over several days and swelled rivers, inundating communities and prompting dramatic rescues from rooftops and vehicles.<\/p>\n Many animals were also evacuated as waters raged over horse pastures, barns and farmland. At the peak of evacuations, roughly 170 horses, 140 chickens and 90 goats saved from the floodwaters were being cared for at a county park north of Seattle, said Kara Underwood, division manager of Snohomish County Parks. Most of those animals were still at the park on Saturday, she said.<\/p>\n