Sunday was a wet one in Sequim.

Despite a lack of snowpack in the Olympic Mountains, unusually warm temperatures brought a downpour of 2.39 inches of rain according to www.wunderground.com on March 15.

Flooding was reported all around the Sequim area.

Fire Chief Steve Vogel with Clallam County Fire District 3 said his crews had 29 calls on Sunday with seven of those related to water issues.

“We did a lot of damage control,” he said.

Fire crews helped with sandbagging at Seabreeze Apartments off McCurdy Road where four units were damaged from flooding, at a home in Sunland off Horizon View Lane where the basement flooded after a culvert failed and at another home’s basement on Happy View Lane off Seventh Avenue.

Vogel said they used four pallets of sandbags at Seabreeze to divert water from an irrigation ditch that went into the homes.

Twila Bridwell, a Seabreeze resident, said the lower town houses were flooded and sand bags were placed outside their doors.

“Since 2001 I’ve been up here and I’ve never seen it rain so hard,” she said.

Ann Soule, City of Sequim water resource specialist, said the Seabreeze flooding was caused by drainage from the western flank of Happy Valley.

Heavy rains since January saturated the ground and not much runoff was absorbed, she said.

The water flow was so great on Sunday, Soule said, that it overwhelmed the irrigation ditch at U.S. Highway 101 forcing extra water into the bypass cut and onto Bell Creek, which may have contributed to flooding at Seabreeze.

Mike Brandt, City of Sequim streets manager, reported that there were several places in the city where water went over the roadway.

He said Blake Avenue, Brown Road, Hammond Street and Still Road were all marked with signs but by Monday morning most of the standing water was gone.

Soule said the irrigation ditches in the west end of the city is another area commonly known to get overwhelmed and fill up during intense storm events.

During such events, Bell Creek “has to be able to handle” excess flow from irrigation ditches as well as most water traveling through culverts under the city, she said.  Although the creek took on most of the water, Soule said, it did have some back-ups near South Brown Road and Blake Avenue.

Earlier this week, city maintenance crews picked up sand bags and began sweeping streets and unclogging drains of garbage and brush.

“We want to make sure they are all open for the next event,” Brandt said.

Despite the flooding, the information collected in response to Sunday’s rainfall by Soule and five community volunteers will provide useful data for the city’s first Stormwater Master Plan currently under construction. The draft plan is expected to be available for public review in late May and before the planning commission in late June.

“Stormwater monitoring is just one component of the plan’s development, but an important one,” Soule said.

Calculating the amount of runoff entering city limits from upland and the county and how much of that water is escaping to the marine environment is key in bettering stormwater management and creating the Stormwater Master Plan, Soule said.

“The city’s objective is to keep as much of the water as possible in the ground to maximize the overall preservation of the resource,” she said.