This just in from reporter Rob Tucker:

When Interstate 5 was flooded in 1996 at Chehalis and closed for four days, the Washington Department of Transportation allowed trucks to take Highway 7 in Pierce County to Elbe, and from there take the Highway to Morton in Lewis County to get on Highway 12. From there, trucks could go west to Interstate 5 south of Chehalis and avoid the flooded part of I-5.

But this time, the DOT’s telling truckers they cannot use the Highway 7 – Highway 12 detour. They are telling them to use a much longer detour, via I-90 to Ellensburg, to I-82 to Umatilla, Ore., and then to I-84 to Portland.

Why? I called WSDOT.

Claudia Cornish, spokeswoman for WDOT, said too many trucks took the detour, which is along a couple of two-lane highways. Truckers jammed both highways and locals couldn’t get around. Highway 7 also goes to the main entrance of Mount Rainier National Park and people like to go up there in the winter, too.

“We had gridlock conditions,” Cornish said. “We’re trying to avoid it this time.”

The 1996 detour, Tucker just calculated, was a mere 84 miles. Sure beats the 440-mile detour via Snoqualmie Pass.

CENTRALIA – Don Burlow thought he could wait the storm out. When the waters began to enter his house, he and his wife, Sandra, realized it was too late to leave. And when a man on a four-wheeler came to their house and offered them a lift out of the waters, Sandra evacuated. Don balked.

“I was going to leave,” he said, “but I got scared.”

By the time a unit from the 81st Brigade of the Washington National Guard arrived to help more than two hours later, the 63-year-old was standing in waist-high, brown water in his home. Recycle bins, tires and plastic bags floated in his front yard. And the 30-year resident of Centralia had to leave out his front window.

Burlow was one of about 40 people rescued from their homes Tuesday in Centralia by one four-person crew manning a light medium tactical vehicle. Three of the four were members of a unit of the 81st Brigade stationed in Kent; an officer from the Centralia Police Department was the other.

The Guardsmen were put on alert Monday night and arrived in Lewis County at about 2 a.m. They discovered a town with flooding of up to 10 feet after the dikes of the Chehalis River broke and overflowed. The Guardsmen worked throughout the day rescuing hundreds of people while the Coast Guard circled overhead in helicopters and grabbed people off their roofs.

“People were thanking us when we got them,” Pfc. John Larson said. “But really, this is what we train for. It’s nice to be thanked, but this is our duty to our country and our countrymen.”

The mission had a bit more meaning for Larson, a 22-year-old welder. He lives in Chehalis and knew many people affected by the flooding. Larson worked the back of the heavy-duty truck, helping load and unload supplies and people.

Sometimes the cargo came in an unlikely fashion. A local Wal-Mart donated water, food and toilet paper. Adam Boehm and Sara Thormahlen, two Centralia residents who said they wanted to find a way to help, loaded it up on their boat and met up with the National Guard truck on a flooded offramp of Interstate 5.

“It was easier than going through town,” Boehm said.

The truck then delivered the goods to several shelters in schools and churches. Most of it was offloaded at Edison Elementary School, where 18 of the evacuees were residents at the Guest Only Care Center, a nursing home.

When the truck arrived, its crew was treated like stars. Children squealed at the sight of the vehicle. A teenage girl ran inside to grab her digital camera, and a dozen volunteers helped offload the food and water.

“This has been an awesome response by the National Guard and the community,” said Henry Reilly. “Regular people went to the store, bought $100 worth of food or more and dropped it off.”

Businesses also helped the displaced. Ralph and Charmaine Burr awoke at 3:30 a.m. when water began flowing under their bed. Water was chest-high when they left their trailer less than an hour later with their two dogs, Shadow and Queen.

A 911 dispatcher told them to head to a nearby Holiday Inn Express. There, the hotel management fed them breakfast and lunch, offered them a dry set of clothes and had their wet clothes laundered. They let them relax in the hotel’s lobby and watch TV until the National Guard unit picked the Burrs up in mid-afternoon.

They were heading to a friend’s house, where they’ll stay for a few weeks. They believe their trailer is likely totaled.

“It’ll be all right,” Charmaine said, gently petting Queen’s head. “We’ll get a new house.”

Bonus photos after the jump:

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I'm filing from the back of a heavy-duty National Guard truck. The soldiers aboard have spent all day rescuing people from Centralia and Chehalis.

More to come soon.

We’ve seen a lot of helicopters today – TV stations, Coast Guard, other search-and-rescue.

But the most high-powered chopper in the skies above Centralia had to be this Chinook:

CENTRALIA – Since most of the roads were flooded or closed, Mike Shope reached his destination via the only surefire way: He drove his Ford F-150 along the railroad tracks.

As he headed past residential roads inundated with brown, silty water, a Tacoma Rail utility truck came rolling by and blared its horn. After Shope veered his truck off the tracks and onto a dry part of the street, the utility truck’s driver shook his head and laughed.

“Any other day,” he said, “we might do something about that. But not today.”

That’s because this Lewis County city hasn’t seen flooding like in more than a decade. This year, a dike on the Chehalis River broke, spilling water into the surrounding areas. Large parts of Centralia were shut down as crews tried to alleviate the flooding. Helicopters – from television stations and the Coast Guard – flew patterns over the area as the National Guard plucked people out of their homes.

Shope and his passengers, Dwayne Powell and Darrin Myers, navigated through the flooded residential streets to check on Myers’ house, which was a block away from the tracks and near Logan Park.

What he found wasn’t pretty: Four inches of water sloshed through his house and ruined parts of the interior.

“There was mud everywhere,” he said. He pointed to the sloppy ground and said, “It basically looks like this inside.”

The three also had a boat tied to the truck’s bed that they used to check on an elderly couple – the grandparents of a friend of Powell’s who lives in Colorado. The couple was OK, but their basement was completely flooded. The water came within inches of entering the house, which was raised five feet off the ground.

“When I walked to the house, I was up to my belly in water,” Shope said. “It was bad.”

They weren’t the only ones that needed to use watercraft to navigate Centralia. Chiropractor Wade Randall wanted to check the status of his office, so he and three others used a canoe to reach it.

The office escaped damage, but his wife, Lori Randall, said it was tough paddling back at times because the currents from the overflowing river battered their canoe.

Juanita Carballo fled the rising waters early Tuesday morning and was still wearing striped pajama pants, a Peanuts Christmas t-shirt and flip-flops nine hours later. A neighbor woke her at 3:40 a.m. and told her she should leave. Her son-in-law picked her up and brought her to his brother’s house.

She stood on dry ground across the street from her apartment, but she couldn’t cross the running water and had no idea how badly damaged it could be.

“I don’t know how much got in there, but I know it did get in,” she said. “I just don’t know.”

More photos after the jump:

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Interstate 5 is shut down on the way at exit 88, but Dean and I have found away using some of Washington's scenic backroads into Centralia (with scenic views of Bucoda and Tenino).

Next stop is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Centralia, which is being used as a shelter.

The Veterans Family Fund began with the lofty hopes of Jane Jacobsen of Vancouver, Wash.

She just wanted to help, she said:

I’ve felt a frustration, as I think most Americans have felt, with watching and reading and seeing so many accounts of these wonderful military people coming home and not getting the care they need. I heard one horror story after another and was frustrated.

Unfortunately, the only direction the American people have been giving is to go shopping (to stimulate the economy). And that’s not acceptable to me. That is not showing support. And it’s not doing anything to directly help.

She thinks things get bogged down in politics:

Whether you’re on the far right or the far left or anywhere in between, there is nothing for any of us to do. That’s part of the frustration. There’s not enough money in our treasury to take care of the veterans who are coming back – and not only wounded, but their families.

More after the jump:

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The omen came in the form of dozens of trucks parked bumper-to-bumper on the onramps and offramps of southbound Interstate 5 and a jammed parking lot.

It was at the Restover Truck Plaza south of Olympia – the final truck stop before the flood-induced I-5 closure in Chehalis – that drivers killed time while waiting for the waters to recede. Many conversed outside or ate at the diner. Most were just trying to make the best of a bad situation.

Raj Sekhon and Surjit Dhillom were among a group of seven drivers leaning against the brick wall of the truck stop’s convenience store. Sekhon was hauling lumber from British Columbia to Stockton, Calif., and had heard the highway might open as soon as tomorrow morning.

Until then, Sekhon and the other stranded truckers are losing money. Sekhon, like others, is paid by the mile.

“When the truck is stuck,” he said, “how are you supposed to earn any money?”

Dhillom had been waiting at the truck stop since early last night. He complained there always seems to be a winter storm that slows or stops traffic on I-5 every year. He was driving from Seattle to Vancouver, Wash., and first learned about the highway shutdown from Department of Transportation signs.

He and the others were talking about anything they could think of, he said.

“We’re just killing time,” he said. “You can’t stay in the truck all day. You have to do something.”

Other stranded drivers spent time sipping coffee and eating hearty breakfasts inside Deanna’s, the diner at the truck stop. Waitress Rachel Kelley said there was a line formed outside before the restaurant opened its doors at 6 a.m.

“Our parking lot has just been packed since last night,” she said while pouring coffee for three customers and checking on the status of a three-egg omelet and a plate of biscuits and gravy.

By 8:30 a.m., the restaurant had served 50 customers – far above its usual customer volume. Last night was packed too, she said, but she wasn’t sure how many customers they served.

David and Yvonne Cochran spent their Tuesday morning drinking coffee with plenty of sugar at a corner table at Deanna’s. They were hauling a load of sporting goods from Kent to Portland.

The official detour calls for drivers to take Interstate 90 and travel across Snoqualmie Pass – a distance of about 440 miles. They called their company’s office to see if they could take the alternate route and were promptly shot down. The Cochrans are paid by the load instead of the mile, but the company would still have to pay for the fuel.

“They said, ‘Absolutely not,’ ” Yvonne said. “That’s just way too many miles.”

They’ve already missed loads in Portland and Fife because of the shutdown at an estimated personal loss of $1,500. The cost to his company is far higher, he said.

And while they waited, Yvonne talked on a cell phone to try to get the latest news from others in the know.

“There’s nowhere else to go,” David said. “We’re stuck.”

Mike Worthy, the CEO of the Bank of Clark County, helped develop the Veterans Family Fund certificate of deposit. His bank in Vancouver, Wash., was the first to offer it.

The attraction was instant, he said:

The more we talked about it, the more we liked the sound about it. And in that conversation, I said, ‘Well, shoot, our bank could do that.’

I talked to our folks here at the bank to figure out the mechanics of how to do it, and it turned out not to be a particularly different proposition for us to do it.

It doesn’t have to be on a large scale to be helpful, he said:

Even if it were a handful of bank and credit unions offering such an instrument, there would still be a benefit to veterans if the money can reach the right people. And that’s where we came to rely on John Lee and the infrastructure that was already in place in the Department of Veterans Affairs.

There’s more after the jump:

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Photog Dean Koepfler and I were just in Sumner at the Rainier Manor mobile home park. Things looked dry -- and empty. The park was issued a voluntary evacuation yesterday, and many people were gone by yesterday afternoon. Most of the cars were still missing Tuesday morning, and the grass and shrubs near the banks of the Puyallup River showed no signs of overflow.

Since there's not much of a story there, we're heading back down I-5 toward Centralia.

Updates will follow throughout the day.

“I wish I could take credit for this great idea,” was how John Lee started talking about the Veterans Family Fund certificate of deposit program. Lee, the director of the Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs.

Here he describes the thinking of Jane Jacobsen, who came up with the idea of the fund:

She was conflicted individually with the idea that we’ve got such a small percentage of our national population – less than 1 percent, in fact – defending these wonderful freedoms we enjoy. And we all talk about supporting our troops. But what are we really doing to support them?

So she thought about the old World War II bond imitative where every citizen was called upon to do something.

There’s a big emphasis on the veterans’ families:

The reason we’re calling it the Veterans Family Fund certificate of deposit is because we want a special emphasis and focus, we want people to know that this not only about the person serving in the military. It has everything to do with their family.

I tell anybody that’ll listen to me that we have the greatest veterans’ benefit system in the world. No country honors its veterans any better than the United States. … But more often than not, the benefit is for the veteran. And the family is struggling in many cases.

There’s more after the jump:

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I'm up way too early this morning to meet up with Trib photog Dean Koepfler. We're heading out soon for day-after storm coverage, likely near Chehalis. We'll be updating throughout the day.