Jail, courts in Kent plan for flood risk

Faced with the chance that floodwaters could swamp the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent, officials are hastily plotting an exodus of inmates, judges, prosecutors and sheriff's deputies that could tax Seattle's court and jail resources.

The Army Corps of Engineers has warned that heavy rainfall during the fall and winter could exceed what the leaky Howard Hanson Dam on the Green River can handle.

If so, officials at the justice center will have 24 to 48 hours to evacuate more than 1,000 people from the sprawling collection of jail cells, courtrooms, law-enforcement offices, a day-care center and other facilities at the nearly 12-year-old, $100 million center.

Rather than wait for the rains to come, officials are planning for such an emergency now by moving some court operations as well as the county's high-security inmates.

"We were shocked when we sat down with the facilities department and understood the threat and the likelihood of the threat," said Superior Court Presiding Judge Bruce Hilyer. "We had all kinds of questions. The first thing we wanted to understand is why do we have to deal with this? Why can't you protect us?"

The center, on the edge of Kent's commercial district, is downstream from the dam in the low-lying Green River Valley.

Water is seeping through soil on one side of the dam. Until the problem is controlled, the corps, which operates the dam, is restricting the amount of water held behind the structure.

That means if the region gets hit by heavy storms, the corps may have to release more water into the river than it has since the dam was completed in 1962.

Several other King County facilities, including the elections headquarters in Renton, Aukeen District Court in Kent and the Department of Development and Environmental Services in Renton, also are considered at risk for flooding.

Plan in the works

County Executive Kurt Triplett is expected to issue a plan later this month, along with a funding request estimated at $10 million to $35 million, to protect the justice center and other county operations.

"The likelihood of a flood is alarmingly high," Hilyer said. "It doesn't take that much water to put our building out of commission."

The corps is now installing an underground "grout curtain" intended to slow water seepage. If that doesn't work, federal authorities have said there is a 30 to 60 percent chance of flooding during the rainy season, according to Assistant County Executive Pam Bissonnette.

King County Jail Director Kathy Van Olst said that because of the threat, authorities will move all high-security inmates, as well as inmates in need of medical or psychiatric care, permanently to the downtown Seattle jail. Jail officials declined to say how many inmates would be transferred permanently, citing security reasons.

Van Olst said a majority of the 800 prisoners at the Regional Justice Center will remain there unless authorities warn that a flood is likely. At that point they would be transferred to other local jails and prisons. Some inmates incarcerated on low-level crimes might be granted early release so they could serve time on electronic home monitoring or in work release.

Court-case overflow

Hilyer said prisoners awaiting trial in serious felony cases also will be moved out of the county's jail in Kent and into the Seattle jail so their cases can be heard without weather-related disruptions.

The resulting surge of criminal cases in Seattle likely will force many civil cases out of the King County Courthouse downtown and into borrowed courtroom space, possibly at the federal courthouse, the U.S. Court of Appeals, the University of Washington and Seattle University law schools and even in conference rooms of several Seattle law firms, Hilyer said.

A courtroom at Harborview Medical Center, once used to hear proceedings for mentally ill patients, could be used.

Staff moved from the Maleng Regional Justice Center to the downtown Seattle courthouse will be squeezed into every inch of available space, said Sandy Ogilvie, operations manager at the Kent court facility.

"We're going to be double bunking a lot of our staff [in Seattle], so people are going to be sharing offices," Ogilvie said.

Sgt. John Urquhart, spokesman for the Sheriff's Office, said administrators are unsure where they would move their nearly 100 employees, including homicide and other major-crimes detectives, if their offices on the ground floor of the justice center flood. He said they are looking for space just in case.

Judges, jail staff and other criminal-justice personnel are meeting several times each week to draft a final emergency plan. With the fall rains approaching, Hilyer said, there is a rush to get an plan assembled.

Superior Court Judge Brian Gain, one of 19 judges and court commissioners who work at the justice center, said people are preparing for what they need to take in case of a flood.

"If they're going to release water, we will have 24 to 48 hours to get out," Gain said, recounting the time frame county officials have been given from the corps.

"We would rather plan for avoiding a huge catastrophe and it not happening than not preparing for a huge catastrophe and having it happen," Bissonnette said.

Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com