The view of Bryant Park on the afternoon of Saturday, Dec. 20, 2025.
It would not be late December if Albany’s Bryant Park was not at least partially under water.
On a brief bike ride along the riverfront Saturday, the day before the start of winter, I noticed the usual for this time of year, as these pictures demonstrate.
Elsewhere in the valley, the scenes were more dramatic on Thursday night and Friday around the valley, with flood waters covering the low spots of many roads and city streets. But I wasn’t there.
On Friday, Albany City Manager Peter Troedsson told the city council that during the height of the rainstorm Thursday, the Albany-Millersburg sewage treatment plant was pushing through water at a rate of 73 million gallons a day, more than 10 times the regular flow in summertime. The system is not designed to
handle that much water, and there were overflows.
From Troedsson’s report:
“The [treatment] plant was staffed overnight and Public Works crews from across the department … were called out to lift stations and various sites around town to minimize overflows, clear storm drains, respond to calls, put out high water signs, road closures, etc. It was a very busy night. The overflow has been reported to DEQ, who are appreciative of the work to keep up with rainfall, and we’re gathering data needed for follow-up reporting.”
In the main, the flooding this week was minor by comparison. The Willamette River crested at about 18½ feet on the Albany gauge Saturday night, far below the flood stage, which is 25 feet. And the National Weather Service expects the river to go down over the next few days. (hh)
Looks like one of the trees in Bryant Park gave up a big limb in the wind storm earlier in the week.
The water level in the Willamette turned the boardwalk railing in Monteith Riverpark into a strainer, the same as last year.
Great pictures, Hasso. Thanks. It is good that Albany Public Works is so proactive when there is so much water raining down and the rivers are so high that their system can’t handle it.
I didn’t realize that the boardwalk in the “revised, but not better” (my words) Monteith Park was turned into a “strainer last winter,” too. (Your words.) If that fact was in a blog post and picture written and taken by you last year, I missed it.
One of my favorite memories of Albany is the park under water. It is such a nice character change. It doesn’t happen every year, but often enough to seem an annual event. The Willamette no longer overflows its banks into downtown like in 1964 because of flood control dams. But it often gets full to the top of the banks, which is well over the top of Bryant Park (as well as the Albany Golf Course).
If my memory is correct the flood of mentioned above was due to a number of factors. The Green Peter/Foster complex was under construction and due to heavy, warm rain on a fairly heavy snowpack caused one of the coffer dams to collapse and the flood followed.
My wife and I had purchased out home in February 1963 and during the year I had requested the week of Christmas off as vacation, which started the day before highway 20 was closed on the north side of the Ellsworth Street bridge (the only bridge at that time) other than the trestle which a few brave souls walked across to get to a grocery store.
Fortunately there were a couple of ways to get into Corvallis other than Hwy 20 and necessities were available. Christmas day for us was to be with my parents who lived near Halsey. We drove to Rickreall, Salem and down I-5 to Halsey and back for dinner.
Highway 20 was closed for five days and opened the day before I had to return to work.
I worked at the paper mill in 1964. To get home from work and avoid high water and closed roads, I had to drive to Salem, and then back south through Stayton to get to the farm where I lived.