Water Damage Restoration in Downtown Olympia, WA

Downtown Olympia sits on made ground. The original townsite of 1850 was a narrow peninsula between Budd Inlet and the Deschutes tideflats, and between 1909 and 1911 the city dredged the inlet and filled the flats to build the blocks that now hold the Farmers Market, the Port, and everything east of Capitol Way. The buildings are brick and cast-stone storefronts from the 1890s to the 1920s along Fourth and Fifth Avenues, 1920s apartment blocks, and a generation of condos and apartments built since 2000 on the fill near the water. A few hundred people live in the old blocks; thousands work in them.

Fill sits low and drains poorly, and the water table downtown is the tide. A king tide of fourteen feet or more, when it coincides with a low-pressure storm, now pushes Budd Inlet up through the storm drains onto Capitol Way, State Avenue, and the blocks around Percival Landing several times each winter. The December 2022 king tide put salt water across streets and into ground-floor spaces near the isthmus. The same fill shook and liquefied in the Nisqually earthquake of February 2001, which cracked foundations and drain lines that leak to this day. Old buildings also carry old plumbing, and a galvanized riser that splits in a December cold snap runs down through three floors before anyone finds it.

This site puts downtown Olympia owners and managers through by phone to an independent local water damage provider who works commercial and residential water losses.

Downtown water damage on the fill

Salt water that came up through a floor drain or under a door at a king tide is a storm and river flood cleanup, and anything porous it touched comes out. A riser or a supply line that split in a 1920s building and ran down through the floors below starts with water extraction on every floor it reached, then structural drying against daily readings.

The Port and the waterfront

The Port of Olympia owns the north end of the fill, from the marina and Swantown Boatworks to the log yard, and its tide gauge is the one downtown watches when a king tide is forecast. Rebuild permits for downtown buildings go through the city's Permit Center, and older buildings may need a look at the historic review as well; the drying itself needs neither.

Call (360) 364-8868 and say whether the water came up through a drain, in from the street, or down from a pipe. We put you through to an independent local water damage provider serving downtown Olympia.