MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Hundreds of families across Washington state have had to leave their homes because of catastrophic river flooding. Some find refuge at emergency shelters. Casey Martin from member station KUOW in Seattle takes us there.
CASEY MARTIN, BYLINE: Jovani Burke (ph) just turned 8 years old this month, though he can't always remember what day exactly.
JOVANI BURKE: My birthday.
C MARTIN: What day was it?
ASHONA BURKE: December 6.
JOVANI: December 6.
C MARTIN: His mom, Ashona (ph), helps him out. She has two sons. The three of them are sleeping at a Red Cross shelter about an hour south of Seattle. Earlier this week, they evacuated their apartment, along with hundreds of other people in the area, because of flooding rivers.
BURKE: My landlord just knocked on the door and just said, oh, you guys need to leave now because you have kids. So we just left.
C MARTIN: The three of them are sleeping in a large gym inside a community center with about 80 other people. The shelter has room for hundreds more during the day. And there are a lot of parents here. About half of the people in the shelter are kids, including a 6-week-old.
JOY OSSTYN: Some family have five kids. You know, we have newborns in there. They're just trying to get cribs and all kinds of diapers and supplies.
C MARTIN: Joy Osstyn (ph) came to the shelter last week when the floodwater started to creep toward her doorstep. There are 10 shelters like this in Washington right now. They opened last week when multiple rivers flooded, some setting new records. South of Seattle, county officials say two flood barriers failed, pouring water into neighborhoods. The Red Cross says so far, more than 1,100 people have checked into one of these shelters. Osstyn says parents are getting hit the hardest.
OSSTYN: They're worrying about Christmas coming up and just how you're just going to make ends meet and not knowing what you're going to go back home to, if you're even going to have a home.
C MARTIN: Osstyn has kids, too. But she sent them to stay with family before the floods hit. Now she's trying to find a way to get to them and figure out where they'll go next. That's a problem for hundreds of families in the state, where the rain is still coming down.
For NPR News, I'm Casey Martin south of Seattle. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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