TUKWILA, Wash. (AP) — Crews used sandbags to shore up an earthen levee south of Seattle on Monday after a small section of it failed following a week of heavy rains, prompting an evacuation order covering parts of three suburbs, officials said.
The evacuation order from King County in Washington state was sent to about 1,100 homes and businesses east of the Green River in parts of Kent, Renton and Tukwila, said Brendan McCluskey, the county's emergency management director. The National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning that initially covered nearly 47,000 people, but was reduced within a few hours to an area covering 7,000 people.
No one was injured, McCluskey said.
Authorities in Renton and Tukwila said Monday afternoon that the flooding was confined to small, industrial areas and that no residents were being evacuated.
The levee breach followed days of heavy rain and flooding that inundated communities, forced the evacuations of tens of thousands of people and prompted scores of rescues throughout western Washington state.
The failure occurred on the Desimone levee beside the Green River, in an area where officials had been concerned about a possible breach, John Taylor, director of the King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks, said at a news conference Monday.
With high water levels in the past week, workers began installing a “seepage blanket” — a permeable material that can remove water from a cut slope — in an effort to reduce the flood risk, and crews were present Monday when the breach occurred.
“We were there because we are monitoring these levees closely,” Taylor said. “It’s just not typical to have these levees have this much water behind them for this long. They’re getting saturated and they’re starting to show the effects of that.”
The spokesperson for the city of Renton, Laura Pettitt, said the breach was minimal and was being filled with sandbags, including large ones about 3 feet (1 meter) tall and holding about a ton of sand.
“What we understand is that the area is being managed and the breach has been controlled,” she said. “However, that’s not to say that there wouldn’t be future impact with any changing situation.”
A section of paved bike path along the top of the levee in Tukwila cratered and broke where the levee washed away beneath it.
Reid Wolcott, warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said the flash flood warning was initially issued for a “rather large area because we didn't know specifically which areas would flood."
“We have since refined the initial alerting area to a much smaller area, and we will continue to refine that alert as we learn more information on the potential impacts,” he said.
The levee was badly damaged during flooding in 2020. Long-term repairs were not expected to be completed until 2031, according to a blog post from the King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks.
In August 2015, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began repairs to a 775-foot-long (235-meter) segment of the levee, as the result of flooding in March 2014, according to the federal agency. The damage significantly impacted the levee’s ability to protect an area of about 7.5 square miles (19 square kilometers). The repairs were to be completed by the end of 2015, though it wasn't immediately clear when work concluded.
This story has been corrected to show that the three cities affected were Tukwila, Kent and Renton, rather than Tukwila, Kent and Auburn.
Rush reported from Portland, Oregon. Associated Press writer Christopher L. Keller contributed from Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Crews inspect a crack in a levee along the Green River in Tukwila, Wash., Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Manuel Valdes)
Crews inspect a crack in a levee along the Green River in Tukwila, Wash., Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Manuel Valdes)
Crews inspect a crack in a levee along the Green River in Tukwila, Wash., Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Manuel Valdes)
BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union envoys worked on Tuesday to narrow gaps on a plan to use billions of dollars in frozen Russian assets as collateral for a massive loan to cover Ukraine's economic and military needs over the next two years, ahead of a crunch summit of EU leaders later this week.
Almost four years into Russia’s full-scale war on Ukraine, the leaders have committed to funding Kyiv’s needs, which the International Monetary Fund puts at 135 billion euros ($157 billion). Ukraine is desperate to secure the money by early 2026.
“We do not have the luxury of time,” Sweden's EU Affairs Minister Jessica Rosencrantz told reporters in Brussels. “It is really time to move forward with a decision, and Sweden is willing to share the risk because the cost and risk of doing nothing is greater.”
Such a move has never been made before, and it comes with risks. The European Central Bank has warned that if Europeans appear willing to grab other countries’ money, it could undermine confidence in the euro currency. Some member nations are also concerned about inviting retaliation from Russia.
Belgium, where most of the assets are held, is the main opponent of the plan. It fears that Russia will strike back, either through the courts or in more nefarious ways.
European Council President António Costa, who will chair Thursday's summit, has insisted that the leaders should not leave EU headquarters in Brussels until they have reached a decision, even if it takes days.
EU leaders froze the money, most of it in Russian Central Bank assets, over the war that President Vladimir Putin launched in February 2022. Moscow has described the plan as “theft.”
Then last Friday, the EU placed an indefinite freeze on the assets — estimated to total around 210 billion euros ($247 billion) — to ensure that Hungary and Slovakia, both with Moscow-friendly governments, can’t prevent the billions of euros from being used to support Ukraine.
It also ensures that the assets can't be used by the United States or Russia in any Ukraine peace negotiations without European approval.
Two plans for using the money have emerged. The first would be a “reparations loan” that would use the Russian assets until Moscow agrees to pay for the damage inflicted on Ukraine. Few think Putin will ever agree to pay reparations.
Plan B would be for the EU to borrow the money on financial markets, much as the bloc did to fund a massive loan plan to revive European economies after the coronavirus pandemic. But many of Europe’s major economies are cash-strapped and mired in debt.
The assets make up a substantial pot of potentially ready-to-use cash. The vast majority — around 193 billion euros ($227 billion) at the end of September — are held in the Belgian financial clearinghouse known as Euroclear.
Plan A has distinct political advantages. Should the EU choose to use the assets, only “a qualified majority” of countries — around a two-thirds majority — would be required for a green light. Borrowing on financial markets would have to be endorsed by all, meaning that even a single no vote would sink the idea.
Over the last year, Hungary has blocked EU support for Ukraine at almost every turn. The government in Slovakia is starting to dig in its heels as well. Avoiding a veto is in the interest of the vast majority of member countries.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said the EU would cover two-thirds of Ukraine’s needs for 2026 and 2027, for a total loan of 90 billion euros ($105 billion). International partners would fill the gap.
Due to EU sanctions on Russia’s assets, cash balances have accumulated at Euroclear. Under the new plan, some of the cash would be transferred to an EU debt instrument. Ukraine would owe the EU the money but would repay only after the bloc’s sanctions are lifted and after Russia agrees to pay war reparations.
The commission insists that there is no “theft,” as Russia has claimed, because the right of the Russian Central Bank to make a claim on its money and Euroclear’s duty to repay will remain intact.
Once Putin paid war reparations, Ukraine would repay the EU, the EU would repay Euroclear, and Euroclear would repay the Russian Central Bank, which in recent days sued the clearing house in an effort to recover its money, ramping up pressure ahead of the summit.
Importantly for Belgium, the plan contains safeguards to ensure that the risks would be shared by its partners. Other EU countries would offer to guarantee the loan if something went wrong. Germany has already signaled that it would do so, as Sweden did on Tuesday.
But the Belgian government has not been assuaged. Even before the commission’s reparations loan plan was made public, the government warned of “consequential economic, financial and legal risks,” and said it felt that EU partners were not listening to its concerns.
Euroclear has not ruled out legal action of its own, should the EU oblige it to transfer the Russian assets.
But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy agrees that a reparations loan would be “a game-changer. Why? Because it is a security guarantee for Ukraine — a financial security guarantee.” Ukraine, he said, would be free to use the money on its economy, infrastructure or armed forces, depending on how the war goes.
Susie Blann in Kyiv contributed to this report.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz welcomes French President Emmanuel Macron at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Maryam Majd)
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen speaks during a media conference regarding Ukraine's financing needs for 2026-2027 at EU headquarters in Brussels, Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Harry Nakos)
FILE - From left, European Council President Antonio Costa, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen arrive for an EU Summit at the European Council building in Brussels, March 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Omar Havana, File)
