Cape Horn is the bluff country east of Washougal where SR-14 climbs out of the Columbia flat and into the Gorge proper, a scatter of homes on acreage along Cape Horn Road, Belle Center Road, and the side roads above the river. The first homestead here dates to 1846, the railroad cut through the base of the cliff in 1907, and the highway construction in 1927 set off a landslide that is still part of local memory. The houses are 1960s through 2010s, on wells and septic, many of them on slopes that look straight down the river to Oregon.
This is the west gate of the Gorge wind. Winter east winds here run harder than anywhere in Clark County, and they drive rain under siding and freeze pipes on the exposed side of a house.
This site connects Cape Horn homeowners with an independent local water damage provider by phone. The provider walks the house and the slope before writing anything.
A ceiling stained on the east end after a windstorm is roof leak water damage work once the roofer has been up, and the crew reads the attic first. A line that froze in the east wall or a pump house is burst pipe water damage cleanup, and the water shows up at the thaw. Muddy runoff off the slope above the house and into the garage is flood cleanup, treated as contaminated from the first step.
The Cape Horn Conservancy keeps the record of the homesteads, the 1907 railroad, and the 1927 slide, and maintains the trail along the bluff. Rebuild permits for this unincorporated stretch go through Clark County Community Development, and the county line with Skamania is only a few miles east, so say which side of it the house is on.
Call (360) 226-7395 and tell us what the wind and the water did. We route you to an independent local water damage provider working in Cape Horn.
Standing water pulled off a kitchen floor, a daylight basement, or a garage slab, then metered to see which walls it climbed.
Air movers and dehumidifiers set by the readings, running until fir subfloor, studs, and drywall reach their dry target in a wet Camas winter.
Water pumped out from under a bungalow or a hillside home, wet insulation pulled, joists and subfloor metered and dried.
The rooms a split supply line soaked during an east-wind cold snap, pumped out and dried once the plumber has the water off.
Wet attic insulation, ceilings, and walls dried after a Gorge windstorm or a clogged valley let months of rain inside.
Finding the hidden supply line, drain, or slab leak behind a high water bill or a soft floor before anyone opens a wall.
Mud, creek water, and hillside runoff removed from a house after Lacamas Creek, the Washougal, or a saturated slope let go.
Cupped fir and oak floors in downtown bungalows and newer hillside homes metered and dried before anyone decides to tear them out.